The Voting Rights Act, enacted in 1965, forced Southern states to allow black people to vote—that’s what we learned in history class.
But few people have ever read the text of the act, or know what it actually does.
Section 5 of the Act is known as preclearance, and:
“freezes election practices or procedures in certain states until the new procedures have been subjected to review, either after an administrative review by the United States Attorney General, or after a lawsuit before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. This means that voting changes in covered jurisdictions may not be used until that review has been obtained. The requirement was enacted in 1965 as temporary legislation, to expire in five years, and applicable only to certain states.”
Temporary, expired legislation being constantly renewed and never changed? Sounds…familiar.
“Preclearance” means that certain counties (like Monterey in California) and states (Alabama except one small city) are not allowed to determine their own election procedures without them being submitted for a special review. For instance, if the citizens of those areas wanted to pass a law to require IDs to vote, it would be subject to federal scrutiny, whereas if, say, Maine wanted to, it could do it entirely on its own.
This provision is currently being challenged before the Supreme Court, because it discriminates against several counties and states. Justice Scalia said the following:
“Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.
That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.”
The quote was changed by Ian Millhiser to claim that Scalia was calling the renewal of the Act “a perpetuation of racial entitlement”. Despite the fact that he said that there is nothing to be gained by voting against it.
Scalia is concerned over Congress voting unanimously, which is a genuine one. As he said a few years ago, “The Israeli supreme court, the Sanhedrin, used to have a rule that if the death penalty was pronounced unanimously, it was invalid, because there must be something wrong there.”
Any suggestion that the Voting Rights Act, at least this provision, has run its course, is met with hostility: “[t]he Supreme Court’s five conservatives appeared openly hostile to a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last week.”
How hostile were they?
“Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that a key provision of the law is rooted in the idea that “citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North.” Justice Antonin Scalia accomplished the unusual task of making Roberts look like a moderate by labeling the law a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose undeserved reputation as a moderate leads Court-watchers to pay particularly close attention to his questions, compared a landmark voting rights provision to the Marshall Plan as an example of a good idea that has now run its course.”
It’s like they want to re-enact Jim Crow!!!!!11
Progressives love to claim that they’re the ones looking forward towards the future.
So why are they living in 1965? Why can’t they see that it’s reasonable to jettison vestiges of the past, especially ones designed to last only a few years until the problem was righted?
The Left lives in past eras: 1935, when Social Security was designed for 65 and up when the life expectancy was 64; 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was a temporary 5-year plan to extinguish any remnants of Southern voting discrimination; 2008, when Obama promised to close Guantanamo and cut spending.
They feed off of the occasional Republican who agrees with them, branding it as “BIPARTISANSHIP” and slapping opponents as racist/sexist/homophobic/backwards and pointing out that one person in their own party doesn’t agree.
And this time, they got their moneyquote in former New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg: “I do believe this is a legislative matter where the action of the congress should take priority and does not raise constitutional issues that justify judicial action superseding the legislative branch’s role”.
A reasonable headline would say “Gregg argues for separation of powers, Left ignores that and co-opts him as only voice of reason for disagreeing with other Republicans”.
