Justices Will Hear Challenge to Voting Rights Act

Washington Post ^ | January 10, 2009 | Robert Barnes

[neverdem]

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to examine whether a central component of landmark civil rights legislation enacted to protect minority voters is still needed in a nation that has elected an African American president.

The court will decide the constitutionality of a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that seeks to protect minority voting rights by requiring a broad set of states and jurisdictions where discrimination was once routine to receive federal approval before altering any of their voting procedures.

The Supreme Court has upheld the requirement in the past, saying the intrusion on state sovereignty is warranted to protect voting rights and eliminate discrimination against minorities. But challengers say it ignores the reality of modern America and "consigns broad swaths of the nation to apparently perpetual federal receivership based on 40-year-old evidence."

"It has the potential to be..."

--snip--

The legislation has reached such iconic status that its extension was renamed for legends of the civil rights movement: It is the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.

--snip--

As a Justice Department lawyer in the 1980s, Roberts wrote a memo opposing an extension of the act, although he said at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings that he merely had been stating the position of the Reagan administration.

But in his short tenure on the court, Roberts has shown himself to be a pithy critic of race-based policies. "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race," he wrote in a 2006 redistricting decision.

In a 2007 majority opinion limiting the use of racial classifications by school systems trying to promote desegregated classrooms, he wrote, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

[Perdogg]

it really doesn’t matter, the dems have the votes to re-write the act.

[OCC]

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Justice Roberts is probably President Bush's most important legacy.

[fr_freak]

The Supreme Court has upheld the requirement in the past, saying the intrusion on state sovereignty is warranted to protect voting rights and eliminate discrimination against minorities.

This high-minded BS is one of the big reasons why the judiciary has become so corrupt. A court's operating philosophy should ALWAYS be "What does the law say?" rather than "What should the law say?" Instead, we have multiple generations of justices who think that the law can be set aside every time there is some sort of "compelling interest" to the state. Effectively, we have a judiciary that feels entitled to rewrite or ignore law as it sees fit. Sure it violates the Constitution, but, hey, we really really need it. Our judiciary needs to be smacked the hell down.

[Carry_Okie]

Effectively, we have a judiciary that feels entitled to rewrite or ignore law as it sees fit.

It's worse than that.

[PISANO]

I see another 5-4 decision.

With Kennedy the deciding vote again.

Hopefully upholding the challenge, but PROBABLY not!

[TheThinker]

Justice Roberts is probably President Bush's most important legacy.

Damn straight. Alito isn't too shabby either.

[2harddrive]

“We don’t need no stinkin’ Voting Rightd Act.” Heck, we not only elected a black, we elected a FOREIGNER!