Supreme Court strikes down Sec 4 of Voting Rights Act

[_bcspace]

But the justices said after five decades, the law has had a dramatic effect in ending discrimination in voting, and said Congress must now come up with new ways of deciding who still needs federal oversight.

Beneath the legal ruling is a broader social statement, with the justices saying that a state cannot be perpetually held responsible for past discrimination if there’s no evidence that it still exists.

“Congress —if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions. It cannot rely simply on the past,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/25/court-past-voting-discrimination-no-longer-held/

One rewrite (Obamacare) deserves another I suppose. But this is good news for those states laboring to control what is likely rampant voter fraud under the grip of Democrat AG's.

[_Brackite]

This Recent Supreme Court ruling should mostly be good news for Democrats further down the road.

The US Supreme Court seems poised to declare Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, at least according to Wednesday’s oral arguments. Good riddance; this law has created ridiculous and unnecessary districts in California for four decades and it is time for it to go.

Two sections of the Voting Rights Act impact how legislative and congressional districts are drawn. Section 2 in essence requires that “majority minority” districts be drawn whenever you have a high concentration of black or Latino voters. The political impact of drawing these heavily minority districts has been concentrating Democratic voters in big city districts. The Democrats found to their horror in 2012 that their House of Representatives candidates received more votes nationally than Republican candidates did, but the Republicans won more seats. That is because Section 2 concentrates Democratic voters and allows Republicans to be spread out.

Republicans love the Voting Rights Act because it allows them to control Congress; minority Democrats love it because more minority Democrats are elected; media elites love it because they think it allows fair representation. No one wants to admit what it really does: permit the kind of racial gerrymandering we saw with the California Citizens Redistricting Commission in 2011.

Link: http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2013/0 ... ights-act/


This also happened back in 1996. The Democrats got more votes than the Republicans did back in 1996, but the GOP was able to retain the House of Representatives then.

The U.S. House election, 1996 was an election for the U.S. House of Representatives on November 5, 1996, which coincided with the re-election of Bill Clinton as President of the United States. Clinton's Democratic Party won by almost 60,000 votes and gained a net of two [2][3] seats from the Republican Party, but the Republicans retained an overall majority of seats in the House for the first time since the Great Depression.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... ions,_1996

[_MeDotOrg]

But the justices said after five decades, the law has had a dramatic effect in ending discrimination in voting, and said Congress must now come up with new ways of deciding who still needs federal oversight.

Seat belts have had a dramatic impact in reducing traffic fatalities, so we no longer need seat belts.

[_Darth J]

One rewrite (Obamacare) deserves another I suppose.

I would love to learn more about this rewrite of which you speak, bcspace.

Also, as the great lover of the original text and meaning of the Constitution that you are, and hater of judicially-invented ideas used to create law, would you please explain to me where I can find the "fundamental principle of equal sovereignty" in the text of the Constitution?

Thanks in advance.

[_Droopy]

quote="bcspace"But the justices said after five decades, the law has had a dramatic effect in ending discrimination in voting, and said Congress must now come up with new ways of deciding who still needs federal oversight.

Seat belts have had a dramatic impact in reducing traffic fatalities, so we no longer need seat belts.

A wholly non-logical analogy. This makes "apples and oranges" appear a trivial comparison.

In any case, while seat belts are a good thing in one sense, they also have clear drawbacks (trapping hysterical, panicked occupants in burning or sinking vehicles), and the state has no business mandating their use for adults.

[_Darth J]

Droopy, as the great lover of the original text and meaning of the Constitution that you are, and hater of judicially-invented ideas used to create law, would you please explain to me where I can find the "fundamental principle of equal sovereignty" in the text of the Constitution?

Thanks in advance.

[_Droopy]

[_Darth J]

Here you go, Droopy:

http://constitutionus.com/

Remember, we are looking for the "fundamental principle of equal sovereignty."

[_MeDotOrg]

]Seat belts have had a dramatic impact in reducing traffic fatalities, so we no longer need seat belts.

A wholly non-logical analogy. This makes "apples and oranges" appear a trivial comparison.

In any case, while seat belts are a good thing in one sense, they also have clear drawbacks (trapping hysterical, panicked occupants in burning or sinking vehicles), and the state has no business mandating their use for adults.

All right, let's say traffic lights reduce fatalities. Yes, they slow us down at sometimes, but that doesn't mean we don't need traffic lights. Perhaps John Galt and Ayn Rand are such good drivers they doesn't need traffic lights, but the rest of us do.

Things have changed dramatically in this county BECAUSE OF, NOT IN SPITE OF, the Voting Rights Act.

For more on why we need the VRA:
http://www.civilrights.org/voting-rights/vra/real-stories.html#harris

[_Brackite]

This Recent Supreme Court's ruling is correct.

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court finally tossed out the antiquated formula that brought a number of states and counties, including four here in California, under the federal Voting Rights Act. The outcry from the usual suspects has been ferocious, that the Court decimated minority voting rights by finding that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is so outdated as to be unconstitutional. Count on hysterical editorials from our state’s leading liberal newspapers as well as the gaggle of law school professors who follow this stuff.

But in fact the coverage formula should never have been renewed by the Congress in 2006, and in 2009 the Supreme Court warned them that it was probably unconstitutional. Now it is.

The Voting Rights Act has had huge bipartisan support because minority Democrats love it as it forces creation of “majority minority” legislative and congressional districts, and Republicans love it for exactly the same reason, it ghettoizes minority votes into a handful of heavily Democratic districts, thereby wasting millions of Democratic votes. Democrats were chagrined to see in 2012 that they won a plurality of votes for Congress but Republicans won control of the House of Representatives. How did that happen? Republican gerrymandering in several states helped but the biggest factor was concentration of minority Democrats into Voting Rights Act districts. For all the Democratic wailing about the obstructionist GOP House, that’s the reason why.

In California, the Voting Rights Act had a somewhat different impact; it helped to destroy effective representation in a number of districts, primarily in the Central Valley. The now unconstitutional coverage formula brought the counties of Kings, Merced, Monterey and Yuba under the Act. These counties had nothing to do with minority voting rights, but all four had large military bases during the Vietnam War and the formula caused them to be covered. It was an absurdity when it occurred and was compounded over the decades until finally the Supreme County threw out the formula yesterday.

In 2011, the Citizens Redistricting Commission interpreted the Voting Rights Act that it had to draw districts in these counties with exactly the same minority percentages as the old gerrymandered 2001 plan it was replacing, and that in itself was an absurdity. The old 16th Senate district, which is undergoing a special election right now, consists of part of the city of Fresno and part of the city of Bakersfield, connected through long hooks and fingers to unite minority population in both cities. But the two cities are miles apart, have different media markets and little in common.

However, the Commission interpreted the Voting Rights Act to require hacking up Fresno and Bakersfield on racial lines such that neither city is wholly contained in single Assembly, Senate or Congressional district. This was forced on the Commission, so it claimed, by the fact that Kings County, a VRA covered county, was situated between the two cities.

Link: http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2013/0 ... ights-act/



I also think that part of the reason why the Democrats received the majority of votes this last General election is because of several Congressional districts in California that had Democrat vs. Democrat in them as a result of Proposition 14 there. Proposition 14 was passed in California in 2010, and it requires that candidates run in a single primary open to all registered voters, with the top two vote-getters running against each other in the General election.