Conservatives push a 'legal assault' on the Voting Rights Act

[Galraedia]

Conservative America is hell-bent on turning the nation's clock back to the 1950s, when there were only incandescent light bulbs, "bad" girls were always punished, and "undesirables" were kept away from the ballot box. The Right is fighting modernity with everything it's got right now, and that includes an intensified battle in the courts over voting.

An intensifying conservative legal assault on the Voting Rights Act could precipitate what many civil rights advocates regard as the nuclear option: a court ruling striking down one of the core elements of the landmark 1965 law guaranteeing African Americans and other minorities access to the ballot box.

At the same time, the view that states should have free rein to change their election laws even in places with a history of Jim Crow seems to be gaining traction within the Republican Party.

“There certainly has been a major change,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of election law at the University of California at Irvine. “Now, you have a whole bunch of credible mainstream state attorneys general and governors taking this view. … That would have been unheard of even five years ago. You would have been accused of being a racist.” [...]

The issue has surfaced in the Republican presidential contest, including at one of the televised debates, and could move to the front burner within weeks as a federal appeals court in Washington prepares to rule on the leading lawsuit against the Voting Rights Act. That case, brought by Shelby County, Ala., is backed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona and Georgia. At least three similar constitutional challenges are pending.

There's a difference between "credible" and "elected," and what we're now seeing is an extreme Republican party that is by no means mainstream any more. It's such an extreme party that it isn't afraid of pursuing policies that are and have been identified by plenty of observers as racist, all in the name of "states rights" and the "will of the people."

Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/20/1063208/-Conservatives-push-a-legal-assault-on-the-Voting-Rights-nbsp-Act-?via=blog_1

[DonCoquixote]

1. The GOP remembers 2008

And they so want to punish America for daring to elect a Black man. They also fear the day when Latinos can offer resistance.

[Scootaloo]

2. Pretty much, yeah

I've lost count of how often I've heard the claim "Barack Obama only won because all the black people voted for him!"

[Ecumenist]

4. You know, as a black woman, I can tell you that that's NOT true and even if it were,

these are people who don't realise that we're only 12 to 13 percent of the population AND there is a considerable number of black folk that cannot vote because of being felons or ex-felons.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. "...we're only 12 to 13 percent of the population". EXACTLY!

Yet where most of the kooks have congregated (along the SE/MA), we are actually >20% of the population... And for bigots, once a "minority" goes over the 20% threshold, their adrenaline kicks into high gear and they suddenly feel they are a minority, despite easily having >%50 of a population, and some of the most egregious laws are promulgated.

2010 Census from "Population Finder" at: http://www.census.gov/ (states/district found to have AA population > 20%)

D.C. = 50.7% (1 AA delegate)
MS = 37.0% (1 AA member in Congress)
LA = 32.0% (1 AA member in Congress)
GA = 30.5% (4 AA members in Congress)
MD = 29.4% (2 AA members in Congress)
SC = 27.9% (1 AA member in Congress)
AL = 26.2% (1 AA member in Congress)
NC = 21.5 % (2 AA members in Congress)

The MS stat is breath-taking.

[dballance]

3. Most of the rest of the world...

Most of the rest of the world is on a drive to curb global warming. Most of the rest of the world is working to give women and minorities equal rights. Most of the rest of the world is working to use renewable energy.

But what is the USA doing? Its legislators in flagrant contradiction to the wishes and desires of their constituents are working really hard to drag the country back in time to when women and blacks could not vote or sit in the front of the bus or at a lunch counter.

Throw them all out!

[Ecumenist]

5. I am NOT surprised that one of the state who's AG's are attempting to turn back the Voting Rights

Act is Arizona. That's one fucked up state. We need to work even harder to slap these people back.

[quaker bill]

6. I hate to tell them this

but black people also voted for Al Gore, John Kerry, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale.....

While dems need and can reasonably count on the vote of black people, it has never been enough on its own.

2008 was a good campaign on our side, but it was every bit as important that 8 years of failure preceded it and that the republicans picked nearly the worst candidate they could to match against Barack Obama. Then that candidate picked Sarah P. to ice the cake....

Had they picked even a remotely credible team to run the country, the race would have been far closer. I think we would have won it anyway, but the victory lap would have been much later in the evening.

The republicans have figured out that their time is nearly over. The effective registration drives in 2008 really did tip the scales. They are trying to stretch it a bit by tipping them back. We need to stand up for voting rights and put a stop to this.

[starroute]

8. There's one point I'll grant them

It's ridiculous that northern and western states can enact blatantly racist redistricting and that the federal government can't raise any objections because the Voting Rights Act only applies to states with a "historical" record of racism.

Equal justice should require for all states to be treated alike and subject to the same level of scrutiny based on present practices.