Ron Brownstein: The Only Way to Save Voting Rights

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The Atlantic
@TheAtlantic
"If Congress doesn’t establish new federal standards, the nation is headed toward a two-tier voting system, with red states imposing ever-tightening restrictions that especially burden constituencies that lean Democratic," @ronbrownstein writes.

The Only Way to Save Voting Rights
Today’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision is a hinge point for American democracy.
theatlantic.com
11:02 AM · Jul 1, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/07/supreme-court-voting-rights-filibuster/619341/


Today’s Supreme Court decision further weakening the Voting Rights Act affirmed that the only way Democrats can reverse the wave of restrictive voting laws in GOP-controlled states is to pass new federal voting rights by curtailing the Senate filibuster.

Congressional action has long seemed the only realistic lever for Democrats to resist red states’ surge of voter-suppression laws, which are passing, as I’ve written, on an almost entirely party-line basis. In the state legislatures, Democrats lack the votes to stop these laws. And while the John Roberts–led Supreme Court—which opened the door to these restrictions by eviscerating another section of the Voting Rights Act in his 2013 Shelby County decision—always seemed unlikely to restrain the Republican-controlled states, today’s ruling from the six GOP-appointed justices eliminated any doubt.

Republicans will understandably view Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion upholding two disputed Arizona statutes as a green light to pass voting restrictions that could disproportionately limit the ability of minority groups to vote: “Even if the plaintiffs were able to demonstrate a disparate [racial] burden caused by [the Arizona laws], the State’s ‘compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its election procedures’ would suffice to avoid [VRA] liability,” Alito wrote. Republican legislators will likely interpret Alito’s repeated emphasis in his decision on the importance of stopping “fraud” and his somewhat gratuitous swipes at voting by mail, both of which echo themes from former President Donald Trump, as much more than a wink and a nod of approval for the laws that are proliferating across red states. (“Fraud is a real risk that accompanies mail-in voting even if Arizona had the good fortune to avoid it,” Alito insisted at one point.) If anything, Alito’s decision, which all the other GOP-appointed justices joined, underscores how thoroughly the determination to restrict voting access in the name of combating illusory “fraud” has permeated every corner of the GOP. (Even the rare GOP critics of Trump’s discredited fraud claims, such as Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have also defended the restrictive new state laws.)

While the ruling signals long odds for the Justice Department’s effort to challenge those laws (starting with Georgia’s) in court, civil- and voting-rights advocates might welcome the clarity the decision provides. It makes plain that if Congress doesn’t establish new federal standards, the nation is headed toward a two-tier voting system, with red states imposing ever-tightening restrictions that especially burden Democratic-leaning constituencies—young, minority, and lower-income voters.

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