Supreme Court weighs major voting rights case

CNN ^ | 2.22 | By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer

[ExxonPatrolUs]

Shelby County is booming. The Birmingham suburb is lined with strip malls, subdivisions, and small factories, in what was once sleepy farmland. The population has grown fivefold since 1970 to about 200,000. Change in this bedroom community is afoot, at least on the surface.

Competing voices in this county, echoes of decades-long debates over equal access to the polls, now spill out in a 21st century fight, one that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I think they are looking at this situation through rose-colored glasses," says the Rev. Dr. Harry Jones, a local civil rights leader, about the current majority white power structure in Shelby. "I think they have painted a picture to make the outside world believe that racism is no more, but if you dig beneath the surface I think you'll find what you are looking for."

But a longtime county leader says things truly have changed for the better.

"Here, now, in this decade, we have black registered voters at a percentage that is equal, and at some occasions exceeding, the voting of the white population," says county attorney Frank "Butch" Ellis, Jr. "It's hard to find that there's any discrimination here, and certainly there's nothing in the congressional record."

Major case for court this term

Now the nine-member high court is poised to decide whether the key enforcement provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be scrapped, as a constitutionally unnecessary vestige of the civil rights era.

Known as Section 5, it gives the federal government open-ended oversight of states and localities like Shelby County with a history of voter discrimination.

Any changes in voting laws and procedures in the covered states must be "pre-cleared" with Washington. That could include something as simple as moving a polling place temporarily across the street.

[Onelifetogive]

This is my county.

[ExxonPatrolUs]

Are you one of those white racists?

[Paladin2]

Shelby County - The Heart of the Heart of Dixie.

(lived there as a kid - back in the day - well b4 the Hispanic invasion)

[Happy Rain]

CJ Jumpin’ John Roberts may have to “visit” Obama on this one even though he about wore out his knee-pads getting “feedback” on Obamacare last time.

[OldPossum]

I registered to vote in Shelby County in 1962. To do so I had to pass a literacy test, which I did. I remember thinking that low-educated people could not pass that test.

My recollection of it was that one had to read certain passages from the U.S. Constitution and answer questions on what was read. Not so easy.

[Stanwood_Dave]

"but if you dig beneath the surface I think you'll find what you are looking for."

Another "Race-Baiting" Professional Racist, can only think there's something in the air worth looking for?

Doesn't offer any proof, other than to demonstrate that a mind is a terror-able thing to waste, when it exposes what's happening on the inside, deep in the crevices of a Racist Mind.