From Ginsburg’s dissent (pdf, scroll down):
All told, between 1982 and 2006, DOJ objections blocked over 700 voting changes based on a determination that the changes were discriminatory…
…On top of that, over the same time period the DOJ and private plaintiffs succeeded in more than 100 actions to enforce the §5 preclearance requirements…
…In addition to blocking proposed voting changes through preclearance, DOJ may request more information from a jurisdiction proposing a change. In turn, the jurisdiction may modify or withdraw the proposed change. The number of such modifications or withdrawals provides an indication of how many discriminatory proposals are deterred without need for formal objection. Congress received evidence that more than 800 proposed changes were altered or withdrawn since the last reauthorization in 1982.
By my back-of-the-napkin calculations, the areas covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act were prevented from enacting approximately 1600 discriminatory voting laws in the 24 years between 1982 and the 2006 reauthorization of the Act. That is 67 discriminatory laws proposed per year, every year, for nearly a quarter century.
Under the new understanding of the law, all of those laws would have gone into effect and most likely had an impact on elections before they could be challenged in court, which isn’t good enough.
Congress also received evidence that litigation under §2 of the VRA was an inadequate substitute for preclearance in the covered jurisdictions. Litigation occurs only after the fact, when the illegal voting scheme has already been put in place and individuals have been elected pursuant to it, thereby gaining the advantages of incumbency.
This is the Republicans’ answer to demographic change.
(shrug) the reality is that white folks simply don’t care about black folks.
this country is one where the majority white folks live and breathe on racism denial like “it’s not ALL of us” and “don’t be broad brush” and “there’s nothing wrong with the south” and “everybody’s racist” and “you’re being oversensitive” and “reverse-racism is as bad as racism”.
that’s what america IS.
that’s how you get all of this crap ranging from conservative voter suppression, to progressives declaring snowden = MLK.
(shrug) not until lack of a voting block affects women per se or gay folks per se, will anyone care.
for hillary’s sake, i sure hope there are a LOT more “working class whites” than i think there are.
the reality is that white folks simply don’t care about black folks.
Nice sweeping generalization you made there.
for hillary’s sake, i sure hope there are a LOT more “working class whites” than i think there are.
And Hillary is going to do what?
Curiously, the sole black member of the Supreme Court doesn’t seem to care much about black folks either….
“Curiously?” It was his main – OK, only qualification for being nominated.
go fuck yourself, asshole.
Seriously: Go. FUCK. Yourself.
Working class whites are not Democrats. There are a lot of reasons, but there is no solidarity on the bottom. The Repukes have pulled a lot of them in, and immigration reform is quickly alienating the few that remain Democrats.
The law of unintended consequences is going to boomerang on the GOP because, the more they win through voter suppression, the less interest there will be in real reform on the right. Before they know it, their base will have died off. They can only win through shenanigans for so long.
Agree, but I think there will be a stronger boomerang than that. Yes, they’ll use their voter suppression efforts as hard as they can and some of it will be successful, but the actual effect of their efforts last year only galvanized the minority vote. They created more minority votes than they suppressed.
We know the black community will fight back, and this ain’t their first rodeo. They know how to fight.
Even more, it should help galvanize the Latino and Asian vote. Eventually it will all be enough to overwhelm the suppression.
So for all their attempts to deny the vote, the neo-Confederates (and that’s exactly what modern Conservatives are) are committing suicide. When suppression succeeds the Confederates will be shamed, and the reaction of minority voters will continue to increase, until the neo-Confederates finally are overwhelmed.
These are the death throes of the right, and this decision is their suicide note.
Suppressing the minority vote only helps you in that particular election, but the people you suppress are going to hate you for the rest of their lives.
There are going to be people voting Democrat in 60 years because of what the Republicans are doing with this vote suppression, and their kids and maybe their kids, too.
Maybe the GOP will be able to eke out a few state senate seats next year, maybe a handful of Congressional seats in 2016. I hope it’s worth cutting their own throats.
Of course, the particular Republicans who would benefit from that suppression in two years will be long out of office and working on K Street in the outlying years, so what do they care what it does to their party? As it turns out, elevating irresponsible self-interest to the status of a core virtue isn’t good for a group’s well-being.
Yup. Exactly. You stated it far better than I.
This GOP strategy has a long history. It reeks of decades past and an era long gone. This apparent success meets a very different America and will prove a pyrrhic victory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory
The GOP has become the party of tax cuts that does nothing but collect taxes. Get the tax dollars and pay themselves salaries, benefits, and a pension. Then they make big decisions and declare what the tax dollars will not be spent on. What they do spend tax dollars on there is no oversight. Just like the big money guys figured out they were being cheated, independents will wise up just as quick. No need to riot…just wait. But while we wait, send bus loads of minorities to suburban DMV for ID. Make them spend those tax dollars by cutting suburban school funding.
Ain’t gonna be no riots.
Not as long as there aren’t breadlines and the little phones they stare at all day long keep working.
and I’m not so sure about the breadlines….complete anesthetized apathy seems the norm.
no one cares anymore. That’s the plain and simple fact.
Oh sure, we obsessives, WE care.
But no one cares. No on cares about Snowden, no one cares about VRA, no one cares anymore.
It’s Jefferson’s nightmare.
Well nothing we do appears to work. Everything just gets worse.
You’re wrong about people not caring. The tinder is very dry. Sparks are landing and fires are being lit. The corporate media is constantly responding by restricting the oxygen flow. The latest American example is the on-going 8 weeks of Moral Monday arrests.
This desparation move is likely to blowback on the GOTP badly. This is the political equivalent of repealing Roe v. Wade. Black people are going to vote and if the GOTP blows up the VRA and Immigration reform while crippling Planned Parenthood before 2014, I don’t care what schemes they come up with, there is no political upside for them.
We still have not proven that we will come out in those great numbers when someone named Barack Obama is not on the ticket. Let’s hope the 2010 turnout is not an indication..
Riots are exactly, and I mean exactly, what the Republicans are hoping for.
I think we need to establish something like the freedom riders. Motor Voters? We need to fund busses, vans, train and plane tickets so that volunteers can go and provide voter registration, education, and protection in places where they will start passing discriminatory voting laws. The other thing that this would do would be to provide witnesses and bring attention to the problem.
I know a lot of people who would do this but would need resources, travel money, places to stay, training.
There has to be a way to put this together.
The most important first step is linking up with folks in the areas that being targeted with voter ID laws who can provide local contacts. Witnesses and especially media attention on a continuing basis is needed, and media don’t come out for these sorts of campaigns like they did in the 1960s.
In the 1960s, a lot of work operated through churches and church facilities. This is still likely going to be the case in the South and in cities in and outside the South. Housing was often in church fellowship halls. Or with local families.
In terms of timing, a fall campaign that leads up to a summertime push fits into the election cycle. In summer, you can recruit lots of students on summer break or folks who want an interesting vacation.
In the 1960s, charter buses and car pooling was the means of travel.
I hope this idea gets some momentum.
Great tips!
I am going to reach out to my friends in TX and NC for a start. We will definitely want to support the work that they are already doing.
Abbott already said that the Texas Voter ID law will now take effect immediately.
Voter ID bills have passed in states outside the Old Confederacy, and their intent in those states is the same.
TX and NC would be strategic because sufficient GOTV could bring change.
The biggies to crack are Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
We agree! 😉
The thing will be to start where there is sufficient support because the learning curve is going to be really steep.
So far everyone I have spoken with really likes the idea but now to see if there will be financial support and help setting things up.
Invitations from local communities where voting rights are being suppressed can build support. If it’s the right thing to do and people are motivated to do it, financial support is not a block. The idea that you need the finances handled before you can do anything has stopped many a workable project.
The learning curve is going to have to do with the arcane provisions in the new voting laws. Getting volunteer election lawyers who are conversant with the laws in the particular state is going to be the key point. And because the folks who want to suppress voting will be trying to use extra-legal means as well, having a good sense of the law in preparation of educational materials will be necessary but not sufficient. You will need to anticipate some of the bureaucratic ways that will be pursued in trying to blunt your efforts. And also plan out security measures, ways of enlisting sympathetic local media, and other campaign aspects knowing that you don’t have the reputation of a major organization to leverage off of.
I have had that same kind of thought over the last several months, as this ruling has loomed over our heads. That is the only way to fight this thing. To start mobilizing an effort right now to make sure that those people who are going to be hurt most by this get all the assistance they need to meet the legal requirements to participate in our democratic process.
It is a fucking shame that it has come to this, but this is where we are. This is the GOP’s final gasp, as they stare irrelevance in the face. And it can be beaten back with a determined and organized effort by those of us who actually think that voting is a right to which every single citizen deserves unfettered access.
I’m starting to reach out to some Obama campaign alum friends. I’m serious about doing this. We have had enough of this voter suppression BS!
Got together last night for dinner with a few fellow Dems and talked about this, among other things. I really think this is an issue around which we can mobilize some people to action.
Agree; and also think following on 2012 and the Wisconsin and MI situations [ALEC takeovers] and the R War Against Women ppl see this in the larger picture. Although the Walker recall did not succeed in recalling him, imo it was a major event in bringing the ALEC strategy to light
Unless the results of Supreme Court decisions are publicized pretty broadly, only political bloggers are going to understand the enormous outrage. It infuriates me, and once again I feel helpless and hopeless to fight the tide of inequality the Republicans are fueling.
Three states immediately began filing for legislation for new voter suppression. They had to have had their plans in writing well in advance, confident that the law would be gutted by the Supremes. It’s sickening.
Well, the American Fascist movement is very well coordinated and they are incapable of shame.
After the reeking sewage of intellectual dishonesty found in the decision to kill the VRA by Roberts’ Repubs, the next stage of the asphyxiation process is nonstop lies and misrepresentations about the effect of the decision by the corporate media and its “conservative” analysts. We’ll see how many actual progressives or recognized legal experts are presented by the fine talking headlice of our TV “news”. Their usual idea of an “expert” (on all topics) is KKKarl Rover.
It’s not like these supreme court decisions are EVER properly explained to the masses—and this one most certainly will not be. So forget the riots. We’ll be lucky if 25% of viewers can even identify what the VRA is after the teevee “reporters” and “analysts” are done with them.
Corporate TV news will do its part to ensure that outrage over this assault on American democracy does not build, or is even understood. So now is the time for Lies and Obfuscation 24/7 on America’s teevees. The corporate media has become a danger to national security, an institution whose very purpose is to mislead and distract attention from the new “conservative” and corporate reality.
Have you ever listened to black radio? IMO black people understood what was going to happen when the Southern Strategy destroyed the New Deal coalition and Reagan spoke near Philadelphia, MS.
I’m not Hispanic but I think they have their own trusted media and so are also not as susceptible to corporate media propaganda. As I understand it, Hispanics are all over the immigration issue, voting rights, health care and other social justice issues.
Also just IMO but your concerns about who’ll understand what this decision means are better directed to those mostly likely to still be buying the dreck the corporate media is selling, i.e., white people. If white women get organized about the very real threats to their civil rights and can make common cause with a progressive movement, the GOTP and the plutocrats are done.
It’s a significant setback and I’m not sure if the ramifications are really setting in yet. We are too complacent. The time to speak out about this ruling and pressure this court was BEFORE today. Perhaps it wouldn’t have made a difference but we’ll never know because we didn’t try.
OT, but now maybe bigger news for a filibuster that NOT about grandstanding. I DIDNOT stand with Rand, but I sure as heck #StandWithWEndy
If she commits one more technical violation of the filibuster rules, then her effort is basically over. The Republicans are pulling out all stops to find every miniscule nit they can pick in the rules to find violations so the “three strikes” rule can apply and they can move forward with a simple majority vote to end the filibuster. It is an amazing effort on Davis’ part to pull this thing off in the face of such determined opposition.
I’m thinking it might behoove the TX Senate to let her complete the filibuster and live to “fight” another day.
Any underhanded thing, seems to me would backfire on them.
Still, Wendy Davis deserves the #StandWithWendy hastag for conducting a filibuster with facts and actual relevant information and not crazy crack theories and such ala Rand Paul.
The GOP is acting like that cop who follows you home at 3:00 A.M., who is just waiting for your tire to kiss that yellow line so he can pull you over and give you a ticket.
For most of those guys, and not a few of the Republican women, Davis’ real offense is being a woman, period. In a not unrelated context, the word “uppity” would come up in conversation.
Sorta on topic…I don’t expect rioting, but I do have the same feeling in the air that I had during the Rodney King trial, between the SCOTUS decisions the past week/days and tomorrow’s decision and the Zimmerman trial (particularly if Zimmerman is acquitted or given a lesser conviction), things seem to be simmering right underneath the service.
And all right before 4th of July (maybe)…God Bless America indeed…huh
Seems to me that Roberts has created a stinking albatross carcass necklace, to be shared by Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
Now, if only the Democrats know how to use it, to build a better, more effective voting rights act on the foundation of the old act.
Only if the Democrats fight to keep this on the front pages. I really don’t see a lot of energy behind this. We should be universally outraged and marching in the streets but you will probably hear more conversation about Kanye’s new release today than you will discussion of the VRA. I think most people (mistakenly) see it as something that doesn’t effect them personally so they don’t care. Thats why you don’t see the president out talking about this, instead he’s talking about green house gases. Amazing.
Damnit, you’re just wrong. Why would you claim the President wasn’t out talking about this when he was? It’s infuriating.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/25/obama-statement-disappointed-with-voting-rights-ruling/
As a rule, I don’t think it’s a great idea for the POTUS to openly criticize judicial decisions, but in the two Supreme Court decisions during his term which were most outrageously damaging to the public interest, Barack has registered outrage and listed the damage to come. He’s also calling for Congress to respond, which is the best and most appropriate response.
Oh yeah, and fuck Chief Justice Roberts. His lies during his Senate hearings were quite brazen, and served to enable his horrible leadership of the Court. The last week has seen one broad, awful 5-4 decision after another.
He issued a 2 paragraph obligatory statement AFTER the ruling. If this was something that was important to him he would have been out pounding the podium and discussing the importance of preserving the VRA BEFORE the ruling was handed down. It’s clear that he’s passionate about immigration reform and green house gases, it is not clear that this is something that he’s particularly engaged by. Largely because we don’t pressure him to address our issues.
nice try, but you missed high school civics class; it’s called “separation of powers”
I was actually pretty good at civics. There is no law against a president publicly stating his support for an issue and using the bully pulpit of the presidency in doing that. I didn’t say that he has the authority to force the SC’s hand but he certainly can influence them by leading the national discussion and building support.
and p.s. although Bushco did not observe this [see, “Dick” “fourth Branch” Cheney], President Obama, having taught Constitutional Law, takes it seriously.
Damnit, you’re wrong there, too. Read Obama using the bully pulpit days before the Court heard the VRA arguments in February:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2012/president/candidates/obama/2013/02/22/obama-keep-key-voting
-rights-act-provision/kHpdMWwqbo2dPFX9MkNiUO/story.html
Stop, just stop, with the misrepresentations.
If you’re claiming that Obama should have campaigned away at it over and over again, I strongly question your reasoning. I think it would be counterproductive for Obama to offer frequent criticism of the SCOTUS in advance of their decisions, not just for separation of powers reasons but because it doesn’t appear to me that these Court members would be positively persuaded by such a campaign.
I really can’t have a discussion with someone that twists my words. You are doing the same thing. Point to where I said the president should “criticize the SC” and I will shut the hell up and you win. The other poster insinuated that I wanted the president to usurp the balance of powers. That’s not what this is about. he did it with gay marriage. He shaped the national discussion by coming out unequivocally in favor of gay rights and by continuing to voice his support for it. Before he did that Blacks in particular were overwhelmingly against GM. After several months the polling started to show that public opinion shifted in a major way. I’m not saying that the president is the ONLY reason that it shifted but he certainly was a major factor. That has to have an impact on the SC. All I’m saying is that he could have done the same thing with VRA if it was important to him. I don’t mind being wrong but at least frame an honest argument with my actual words.
I disagree with your conclusions, and your reasoning.
Your first statement claimed that “you don’t see the president out talking about this,” and strongly implied that Obama is to blame for your view that the American People “don’t care” about the VRA. Your second statement claimed that if Obama wanted to affect the debate “he would have been out pounding the podium and discussing the importance of preserving the VRA BEFORE the ruling was handed down.” I demonstrated that he was talking about the VRA before the ruling was handed down, explicitly and implicitly.
Do you really believe that Justice Kennedy’s crucial vote, the vote we always knew we needed, to declare DOMA unconstitutional is in any way because of changing public opinion among the African-American community since 2010? That seems off. I’d suggest that Kennedy’s vote in the VRA case suggests that Kennedy is rather awesomely removed from the African-American community, or from any American community outside his gates.
If you think that Obama was making the explicit case for gay marriage over and over and over again, I’d disabuse you of that notion. He made a statement where he shared that he had evolved away from his previous opposition to gay marriage, and made a number of implicit statements afterwards. If he had made his evolution a much more prominent part of his campaign, he would have risked his reelection even more than he did by making the move.
Of course, the President’s most important act in this case was allowing the DOJ to refuse to defend DOMA. I would draw a direct line between that implied directive and the DOJ’s important, aggressive work in the last few years in enforcing the VRA, particularly in the Section 5 jurisdictions. Nothing was a more powerful demonstration for the need for the VRA than that DOJ work and the many game-revealing squeals of braggadocio by GOP leaders about their voter suppression strategies, and their complaints when most of their attempted franchise denials were slapped down.
So, in both the DOMA and VRA cases, President Obama made explicit statements about his views regarding the importance of these cases coming before the Supremes; he made a number of implicit statements in high-profile venues; his agencies strongly backed up the principles of his positions. He prioritized the VRA fight as much as he did the DOMA fight.
The President is not to blame for the rotten VRA outcome, and I didn’t like the misrepresentations of what he actually did in defending it.
All very good points, I guess VRA is not sexy enough so it has not received nearly the same coverage as gay marriage and others. I’m here to express my opinions as much as I am to learn from others. I don’t have to be always right (although I usually am) :), on this one I can see that there are other valid points of view.
President Obama also made strong statements regarding voting rights during his 2012 election night victory speech and during his 2013 State Of The Union address. Would that not be “bully pulpit” enough for you?
If it’s enough for you that’s fine. The VRA is history and if you think he worked as hard on that as he did gay marriage and immigration that’s your opinion.
so that’s the latest talking point – Obama is supporting the rights of others more strongly than rights of African Americans. Good luck with that.
You just hate that you can’t make everyone else agree with your opinion. You’re right and everyone else is wrong. As evidenced by your answering for another commenter, unless the other commenter is your better half.
President Obama wants people to care about voting rights. Again:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/27/1219450/-President-Obama-suggests-Voting-Rights-Act-can-t-b
e-fixed-but-calls-for-new-voting-rights-measure
He’s full of good points and practical remedies, even.
This is a step in the right direction, he’s saying the right things but we need specifics and we need the WH to lead the agenda. Unfortunately, this Congress can’t be relied on to drive something this important.
Thanks for the responses. Geez, though, I think this last statement from Obama is pretty specific. If you’re saying the President should write the Bill and present it to Congress, I’d question if that would be the most effective strategy. It’s been a bit noticeable during his term that if Barack supports something specific, the GOP Congressional Caucus feels they must oppose it, no matter how modest.
I don’t see riots as we saw after MLK died or after the Rodney King ruling. I wouldn’t be surprised by it though.
I do see continued increased minority voter turnout, as we saw in 2012, in response to efforts to supress their vote.
Could one of these bozo judges just go away somehow? Please? It is really scary. Really.
well, could be the Obama appointees will give one of them a nervous breakdown
That is a ridiculous and shoddy over-count.