Civil rights activists, braced for a defeat from a court increasingly skeptical of race-based government policies, said the outcome was the best they could have hoped for. However conservatives, who had questioned the need for the requirements in a country that just elected its first African American president, found reason for hope in the court's blunt questioning of whether Congress had made the case for its extension of the law. Experts said the key provision of the law appeared to have received more of a stay of execution than a reprieve. "I tend to think the Voting Rights Act is living on borrowed time," said Nathaniel Persily, a Columbia University law professor whose work was cited in the opinion.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had earlier called the case "perhaps the most important of the term," and the court's 8 to 1 decision for now leaves in place the heart of the act: the Section 5 provision that requires federal approval for any changes in election laws or redistricting decisions in nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of seven others. That provision was deemed necessary in the original act to combat discrimination in those states and what was at the time a steadfast resistance to minority voting rights. Supporters of the law noted that the decision means the provisions probably will be in place to guide the electoral redistricting plans required by the 2010 census.
"It's fair to say this case was brought to tear the heart out of the Voting Rights Act, and today that effort failed," said Debo Adegbile, lead attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The court said Congress's actions in extending Section 5 "raise serious constitutional questions," but Roberts wrote that "the importance of the question does not justify our rushing to decide it." Instead, the court made it clear that all political subdivisions covered by the act were free to make the case to federal officials for an exemption. So far, only 17 subdivisions of the 12,000 covered by the act -- all of them in Virginia, including Fairfax City -- have "bailed out" of Section 5's restrictive provisions.
The nearly unanimous decision -- only Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's lone African American, found the provision unconstitutional -- masked the court's deep divisions about the act. During oral arguments, the court's conservative majority was openly critical of the requirements and sharply questioned whether some states were being treated differently because of past discrimination rather than current conditions. When Congress reauthorized the law in 2006, it retained the Section 5 restrictions on the same states -- Virginia, Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas and parts of seven others -- without an examination of whether some should be removed or others added.
"The South has changed," Roberts wrote in what some experts interpreted as a warning to Congress. "The evil that Section 5 is meant to address may no longer be concentrated in the jurisdictions singled out for preclearance. The statute's coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old, and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions." Thomas on the other hand, said that was reason enough to find the provision unconstitutional. "The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains," Thomas wrote. Neither the opinion nor the dissent mentioned President Obama's election.
Roberts said that finding an act of Congress unconstitutional is the "most delicate" task the justices have and that there was no reason to do so now. The court instead said the municipal utility district in Austin that had served as the test case was eligible to apply for a bailout, something a lower court had said the law did not allow. The decision seemed in tune with Roberts's stated goal of deciding cases as narrowly as possible and avoiding what probably would have been another divisive ruling for the court on an important constitutional issue.
Persily called it "an example of real statesmanship by Chief Justice Roberts." Another expert on election law, Richard Hasen of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the chief justice "blinked" after his long-standing criticism of the law and other government policies on race. Ellen Katz, a University of Michigan law professor, said the court may have decided that after the way the Voting Rights Act revolutionized minority voter participation in America, "its fate ought not be the Supreme Court striking it down."
But the reality is that, what the Supreme Court doesn’t mention and what many in Congress doesn’t realize is that the Voting Rights Act shouldn’t just apply to some southern states but all states in America. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act should apply to every state because when you think about the provision, it requires federal approval for any changes in election laws or redistricting decisions in nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of seven others. The provision was deemed necessary in the original act to combat discrimination in those states and what was at the time a steadfast resistance to minority voting rights but minority voting rights has been under fire since the act was performed and no other reason is needed for the importance of the Voting Rights Act than the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections were minorities in the states of Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004) were discriminated against in two hotly contested Presidential races in America’s history.
Thus Congress and the supporters of the Voting Rights Act should have made this case in front of the Supreme Court and despite the fact that America elected its first African American President doesn’t mean the Voting Right Act is not needed because the provisions within the act are just as important as they were in 1965 as it is now. That’s why Justice Roberts and Thomas are both wrong when they state that the voting rights act is unconstitutional and in a political racially society that it might be time to change it. I beg to differ because the fact that our society is racially political makes it all the more reason why our nation needs to protect the right to vote for all Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 not only protects minorities but it protects all Americans from unjust laws that are intended to hinder a person’s right to vote.
Besides the fact Obama was elected President doesn’t mean America is better off but it just shows we as a nation have come a long way but we still have farther to go. Voting in America is not perfect and the Voting Rights Act didn’t prevent the voting mishaps of Florida and Ohio in its entirety but it did allow a federal investigation into the voting practices of those states something that prior to the law that would not have been possible. All the provisions of the Voting Rights Act should apply to all states in America not just Southern states but one can understand why southern states are still under scrutiny because in the 2008 Presidential election Obama only won two southern states, Florida and Virginia. Thus the argument that Justice Thomas makes about Obama’s election being all the more reason why Provision 5 of the Voting Rights Act should be stripped is just false. In fact Obama’s election victory and how he won should prove that much of the south hasn’t changed and why the voting rights act is still necessary. Plus with the 2010 U.S. Census right around the corner and voting districts being redistricted, it is important for all the provisions to apply to all states because in many states when voting redistricting takes place, many times gerrymandering takes place in order to limit minority power in some states so that minorities can’t gain more power within a state than they already have. In some cases, minorities lose power due to this.
Thus the reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, is one that allows the Voting Rights Act to survive for now but no one knows for how long. Which is why we as Americans, no matter if what race, age or gender you are, we all need to stand up for Voting Rights in this nation. We don’t have to look across the world at the Iranian election to see the importance of voting rights in this nation but we can just look at all the local, state and even national elections where voting rights have come under fire and scrutiny and in most cases, elections have been stolen or attempted to be stolen. Therefore the Voting Rights Act doesn’t just apply to minorities but it applies to all Americans and the importance of it is very important to ensuring that America’s elections are as fair and free as it can be. We don’t need to revert back to the old way of this nation in terms of elections where voter suppression reigned greater than it does now. That’s why we as a nation must not allow the Supreme Court or our U.S. Congress to strip the Voting Rights Act or any of its provisions because it is of great importance to protect the right to vote by any means necessary when our nation has a history of stealing elections as well as suppressing the right of the people to vote.
All Americans should stand up for the Voting Rights Act to become permanent in this nation so that we don’t have to ever discuss it again. It makes no sense that the Voting Rights Act is discussed every 20 or so years when our nation has not found solutions to the voting problems that plague our society such as voting precincts being changed without notifying the people, paperless voting not being accurate, and voter suppression at polling places in terms of challenging someone’s right to vote so that the lines take longer than usual. That’s why the Voting Rights Act and all of its provisions & sections of it need to apply to all states not just southern states or a select few. The Voting Rights Act is of great importance and that is why we as a nation cannot revert or allow our nation to strip away one of the most important commodities of a democracy which is the right to vote and the insurance that the right to vote is as free and fair as it can be.
That’s what the Voting Rights Act and all of its provisions & sections allows in this nation. We as nation have seen just how effective the Voting Rights Act has been since its enactment in 1965 but the reality is that it hasn’t corrected all the wrongs within our society as it relates to voting in America but it has prevented many occasions in terms of voting from getting worse. So any notion or attempt to say that the Voting Rights Act and all of its provisions & sections are not as necessary as it was when it was enacted are just not true and those who think otherwise just need to look at the 2000 & 2004 Presidential elections to see just how much the Voting Rights Act is necessary.
Therefore America we must stand up for the Voting Rights Act to become permanent and for all its provisions & sections to apply to all states and just not a select few in our beloved country. This is what all Americans should fight for no matter how long it takes or how many people oppose it, voting is a right of all people and that’s why we have to make sure that it is as free and fair as possible and the Voting Rights Act is an attempt at insuring that. We have to make sure the Voting Rights Act doesn’t just survive a scare but it becomes permanent forever. We can’t allow the Voting Rights Act to survive for a certain period of time but we must make sure it survives just as long as America remains a democracy.
Voting Rights Act Now & Forever NO Matter What!
Make the VOTING RIGHTS ACT Permanent!
VOTING is a RIGHT so make the ACT Survive Forever!
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