US Supreme Court gelds Voting Rights Act

[Dinner]

I wouldn't be too quick to assume they did it because they felt minorities needed to be systematically kept down (i.e., what the original VRA was about). More likely they did it because they felt minorities would vote Democrat.

A distinction without difference because it results in the exact same thing. Minority voters suffering under voter suppression.

Yes, you also said that but it's true and it needs to be repeated.

[Elok]

Let me put it this way: suppose that, based on ancient information, cops in some Southern states have not been allowed to use dogs for fear that they'll sic them on nonviolent protesters. Suppose also that cops in many other states have been setting their dogs on protesters willy-nilly lately. SCOTUS rules that it's unfair to deny dogs to some states' cops but not to others, all based on information from the sixties.

You can argue that all or most states' cops should lose their dogs, and I'd see your case. But it's hard to argue that the status quo was not unfair.

[Sava]

I think this is a very good idea. Write your Congressman. I am going to. Tying this to the census is a great idea as this is what causes redistricting, I see the biggest issue in voting rights currently being redistricting abuse and not denial of voting.

Redistricting is the only thing that keeps conservatism relevant in modern politics.

[Elok]

A distinction without difference because it results in the exact same thing. Minority voters suffering under voter suppression.

Yes, you also said that but it's true and it needs to be repeated.

While the results are the same, the VRA was enacted to confront a deliberate campaign to suppress minorities at the booth--as part of a broader campaign to suppress them in every other way. I'm pretty confident that they're now suppressing them not out of any very strong racial animosity but just because they would vote in an inconvenient way. If it were feasible, I'm sure they'd gladly pass regs that discouraged gays and union members from voting, as well. The results may be the same, but the difference in purpose indicates that the court was right about one thing: conditions on the ground, not surprisingly, have changed since LBJ was president. And this kind of racial discrimination is hardly confined to the South. Indeed, widespread gerrymandering is a far more serious threat to electoral integrity than any voter ID law.

[PLATO]

Redistricting is the only thing that keeps conservatism relevant in modern politics.

Provocative and unsupported comments are all that keeps you relevant at Apolyton.

[MrFun]

Which I think is a fair argument for imposing VRA restrictions on all fifty instead.

[The Mad Monk]

There's a better way to say what I meant.

Then why didn't you say that?

[Felch]

It looks like MrFun agrees with the court's ruling now.

[Dinner]

Provocative and unsupported comments are all that keeps you relevant at Apolyton.

He is right though. In 2012 Democrats actually got far more votes in the house yet magically Republicans control that body due to gerrymandering. If it wasn't for gerrymandering the Republicans wouldn't control either the house or the senate.

[Felch]

You do realize that the VRA imposed gerrymandering on southern states, right?

[Dinner]

Yes, in extremely limited situations. To compare, the other way results in everything being gerrymandered. Personally, I'd prefer all gerrymandering ended but if I have to pick my poison a little of something bad is better than a massive truck load of something bad.

[Dr Strangelove]

Yes.

Also, I'm not upset at all that this effectively means the end of preclearance. I think it's actually time for preclearance to end. Maybe racism isn't done. Maybe people will still try to disenfranchise blacks. But it's gotten to the point where it's better to have the courts deal with it after the fact (which works because jurisdictions will know they can't get away with it) rather than write off counties and states wholesale as Racistland. Take Virginia for instance. We're on the preclearance list that was just struck down. We've elected a black governor once and a black president twice. Our (Republican!) attorney general has spent a good part of his career exonerating wrongly convicted blacks from the Jim Crow era. We have a black Republican running for Lt. Governor this year (although he probably won't win because he's an idiot). I think we're pretty well past it at this point.

Doug Wilder won largely because Ollie North split the conservative vote. Also exit polls showed that half the people who voted for Doug Wilder didn't know he was black.
I've known plenty of people who've said "Danm yankee". I could show you places where highway signs have "KKK" scratched into them.

[Hauldren Collider]

I could show you places where they had swastikas scratched in them. That's not because it's the south, it's because teenagers think it is funny. Do you seriously think the KKK has any sort of real following anymore?

You're being ridiculous wrt to Doug Wilder by the way--there was no third candidate in that election, so what are you talking about? You're also completely ignoring Obama. Virginia politics are not dominated or even particularly affected by race. And it was democrats, not republicans, who historically have run the racist party machine in this state. Note, as I mentioned, conservatives are running a black candidate.

[Felch]

Yes, in extremely limited situations. To compare, the other way results in everything being gerrymandered. Personally, I'd prefer all gerrymandering ended but if I have to pick my poison a little of something bad is better than a massive truck load of something bad.

The alternative to gerrymandering is not different gerrymandering. It's objective redistricting. The VRA made objective redistricting illegal.

[Dr Strangelove]

I could show you places where they had swastikas scratched in them. That's not because it's the south, it's because teenagers think it is funny. Do you seriously think the KKK has any sort of real following anymore?

You're being ridiculous wrt to Doug Wilder by the way--there was no third candidate in that election, so what are you talking about? You're also completely ignoring Obama. Virginia politics are not dominated or even particularly affected by race. And it was democrats, not republicans, who historically have run the racist party machine in this state. Note, as I mentioned, conservatives are running a black candidate.

Sorry, not Oliver North, but Stanford Parris, who ran a write-in campaign.