Posted on 02/08/2011 2:05:59 PM PST by jazusamo
Last week, a federal district court heard arguments in a case brought by Shelby County, Ala., challenging the constitutionality of significant parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The case may reshape American politics.
At issue is the law requiring the attorney general to approve every single change touching on elections in some but not all states. Little-noticed behavior of the Justice Department makes it more likely the U.S. Supreme Court could invalidate the 45-year-old law, assuming the high court is aware of the offending behavior.
Section 5 forces nine states and parts of seven others to submit every electoral change to the Justice Department for approval. For example, in New York, it covers Brooklyn but not Queens. If a polling place moves 50 feet in Brooklyn, Washington must approve. Redistricting plans in 16 states also must obtain federal approval if Section 5 survives.
Section 5 borders the farthest constitutional frontier of federal power. Which side of the limit it sits on will be decided shortly by the Supreme Court.
The case will turn on whether the circumstances that existed when Section 5 passed still give constitutional warrant to federal regulation of state elections. Section 5 was meant to be an emergency provision, allowed to last just five years and intended to block any backsliding toward racial discrimination in voting.
The week the law was signed, the Cincinnati Royals played in the National Basketball Association, "Help Me, Rhonda" by the Beach Boys topped the charts, and "My Fair Lady" had just won the best-picture Oscar. Obviously, much has changed.
Eric H. Holder Jr.'s Justice Department has become notorious for enforcing election laws with a racial double standard. From the corrupt dismissal of the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case to the refusal to enforce voter integrity laws, Mr. Holder's...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Bad news for the racist bastard in the White House and his stupid racist tool Holder.
Regards
Fascinating, the other portion that surprises me is such laws did not really change much for the better.
The be all end all in America should not be “get some guy elected”.
The Heart of the Heart of Dixie.
Yes, it’s a shame Section 5 hasn’t already been thrown out by SCOTUS, there’s little doubt it’s unconstitutional.
Huh.. I wonder if the Voting Rights Act has a severability clause?
It is bad news. I suspect Zero had been planning on using Section 5 to prevent the wholesale shift in congressional district voting power that is going to happen in the South as a result of the 2010 shift in Southern state legislatures. Many portions of the South will go from badly gerrymandered left to badly gerrymandered right. That’s going to be a bunch of congressional seats. I believe Section 5 can be used to prevent changes from occurring. So a delay of two years would keep current congressional lines intact thru 2012.
This justice dept can easily gin up a one year delay so long as it hurts conservatives.
“At issue is the law requiring the attorney general to approve every single change touching on elections in some but not all states.”
In some but not all States is perhaps among the most agrevice aspects of the “Voting Rights Act of 1965”.
Congress not only has no legitimate jurisdictional on the matter of their own reelections, but to apply their rules to only some but not all States is outrageously unfair and discriminatory.
This act of discrimination threatens the very spirit and fabric of our union, undermining the equal footing we are all suppose to be on.
If the north want’s to impose repressive laws upon the south, then the north should at least have the decency to live under them same laws!
We had problems where in some publicly infamous ways State political establishments became entrenched and abusive, when the Federal establishment of that same time was much less so in those -- racial -- aspects. The Feds, with the support of the public seeking a Good, took over. Today the political situation is reversed.
Today the States see all citizens as equal before the law. They have learned the Good lesson! Yet the Federal establishment has become mightily corrupt and oppressive. And strangely enough that corruption and oppression although formed to favor one race over another comes to oppress and ruin the now-favored race the worse -- we see that in the massive amount of family and marriage destruction encouraged by Federal policy.
It is like the case of the freed slave African-born Anthony Johnson who became prosperous and bought slaves himself, and then in 1654 sued and won a case to have one slave, John Casor, declared a slave for life -- the first American case of a chattel slave. The rise in wealth and power of many a post 1980's Black-American and Black-American family is founded on the utter poverty of hundreds of other Black-Americans.
There is a "Rest of the Story". The children and descendants of Anthony Johnson, that first chattel slaveowner, came to enjoy only suffering from Johnson's legacy.
After Johnson’s death in 1670, a court ruling set to a precedent that would be an important factor in determining the social status of freed black men in the colonies. A white Virginian planter was allowed to seize Johnson’s land because a ruling by a local court that said, "as a black man, Anthony Johnson was not a citizen of the colony."What's right should be done, but a US legal system hard-frozen into a harsh and ignorant complexity by a overabundance of mindless process and myopic, calloused "Stare Decisis" -- that being an insufferable regard for precedent at the expense of common sense deeply respecting the "Laws of Nature and Nature's God" -- is almost sure to not allow it, or to make any attempt at correction toxic.Johnson’s children were only able to hold on to enough land to become independent farmers.
The forty remaining acres of Johnson’s original property was inherited by his grandson John Johnson Jr.. He named the farm Angola, as a tribute to his grandfathers birth country, but after an inability to pay taxes lost the land.
-- wikipedia
What can last forever? Only ideals. G-dly ideals.
Ironically, it is Section 5 that cost Barry Goldwater and the Republicans their once significant share of the black vote.
Goldwater identified that restricting the provisions to just some of the states, rather than all of them, was unconstitutional on its face. He sponsored an amendment to extend Section 5 nationwide.
His amendment was defeated. And Goldwater refused to vote for the final product. This was during the run-up to the 1964 election.
Thus, even though it was Republicans who were responsible for passing the Civil Rights bill, the Democrats and the media painted Goldwater and his party as racist.
And the black vote -- which had leaned Republican in presidential voting -- left the GOP almost overnight.
Had Section 5 been legally challenged at the time, as Goldwater did in the Senate, it would likely have gone down in flames.
Thanks for that background, I didn’t know that.
Regards
I’m looking forward to the day when Holder gets on a flight that ends like Ron Brown’s flight.
Nice post, althou it should be stated that “Stare Decisis” is not only ignored when convene for liberals and applied irresponsibility by conservatives.
For example in the cases regarding incorporation of the 14th amendment they ignored 2 prior Supreme court ruling on the subject before finally an activist court in the early 20th century invented the doctrine.
Where was their “Stare Decisis” then?
It is of course from that... “discovery” of the federal employees in black robes that you have other usurpation like Roe vs wade and the distraction of the State Republican forms of government.(end of regionally representative state senates, to prevent large city’s from exploiting the whole state, as Chicago does to the rest of Illinois)
The point is the federal employees in black robes only selectively follow their own rules, as a means of giving themselves effective Constitutional lawmaking power.
>>If the north want’s to impose repressive laws upon the south, then the north should at least have the decency to live under them same laws!<<
Oh, but that would be fair. And we can’t have fairness, when it is so much more fun to persecute others./s
The Yankee government and the South have been at war since the “3/5ths compromise” - and it will never end. The present regime is deliberately provoking class and regional warfare on all fronts since day one. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
I just want to point out that by "end of regionally representative state senates, to prevent large city’s from exploiting the whole state, as Chicago does to the rest of Illinois" you mean the extremely thin thread that lead to the One-Man-One-Vote rulings. By the logic of that ruling the US Senate must immediately be disbanded!
“I just want to point out that by “end of regionally representative state senates, to prevent large city’s from exploiting the whole state, as Chicago does to the rest of Illinois” you mean the extremely thin thread that lead to the One-Man-One-Vote rulings. By the logic of that ruling the US Senate must immediately be disbanded!”
Exactly and this was even pointed out at the time, but would you believe the Federal employees in black-robes justified the existence of the U.S. Senate on the grounds that it is enumerated in the Federal Constitution?
Talk about the height of self-centered hypocrisy, Do the State Constitutions not exist at all to the Federal employees in black robes?
According to Theses Federal employees in black-robes the State Constitutions have been abolished by the 14th amendment, and we the people are no longer free to govern ourselves.
It should be noted that this ruling resulted in 33 States calling for a constitutional Convention specifically to repeal this abomination. Unfortunately it took so long for the State’s to all get organize and issue their calls that by the time they got to 33(a decade) most of them have been replaced by new Governments as a result of this anti-republican ruling.
This Federal Edict was as such a completely successful a Constitutional coup. A successful one that yet again illustrates the extraordinary fallacy of allowing the Federal Employees in black robes to “judge the extent of their own power”.
“>>If the north want’s to impose repressive laws upon the south, then the north should at least have the decency to live under them same laws!<<”
Oh, but that would be fair. And we can’t have fairness, when it is so much more fun to persecute others./s
The Yankee government and the South have been at war since the “3/5ths compromise” - and it will never end. The present regime is deliberately provoking class and regional warfare on all fronts since day one. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.”
This is a tool that the South and allies of the South can turn against the north, and perhaps should, besides once we control their elections their “votes” really don’t matter.
They will be prisoners in their own land, we need only remember this fact so that when they finally do decide to secede to reclaim their liberty & equality that we let them.
As nice as it would be to bring the same kind of destruction upon them that they once brought upon us. IE: Burn Boston and New York City to the ground as they once burned Charleston and Atlanta. We must remember that vengeance is not worth the inevitable costs of hanging on to them.
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