Opinion: The grim fate of the Voting Rights Act in the hands of the Supreme Court
This opinion only makes sense if the SCOTUS is going to strike down or further gut the Voting Rights Act. With three TFG assholes on the SCOTUS, the Voting Rights Act is doomed. The future of the SCOTUS, Roe v. Wade and the Voting Rights Act was on the ballot in 2016 and now we are seeing the consequences of people not voting for Hillary Clinton
Will anything be left of the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court finishes with it? Its looking pretty grim. In 2013, the Supreme Court dismantled the part of the law that required states with a history of discrimination to get approval for changes to election rules. Last year, the court all but eliminated minority voters ability to use another part of the law to challenge discriminatory voting restrictions. Now, the court has signaled its interest in frustrating the laws aim of ensuring that minority voters are adequately represented.
The justices acted in a case from Alabama, where African Americans account for 27 percent of the population but a new map features just one Black-majority district among the states seven congressional seats. A panel of three lower court judges (including two Trump appointees) found that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and told the state to create another district where Black voters can elect the candidate of their choice.......
Nevertheless, the courts conservative majority might be poised to rewrite Section 2 in the way that Alabama proposes. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, in a concurrence joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., said that the outcome of the case was not clearcut in favor of those challenging Alabamas map. That can only be true if the court is preparing to transform the law.
More ominously, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., while voting to leave the lower court order in place, flagged the only lower court decision to have embraced Alabamas position, along with the article I co-authored examining the implications of that approach. The message is clear: The courts conservatives are seriously considering a race-blind interpretation of Section 2 that would neuter its effectiveness.
Like Roe, it appears that the SCOTUS is going to gut or kill the Voting Rights Act.