The instant the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act
by knocking out the key provision requiring Justice Department preclearance
before a locale can alter or institute new voting procedures the call went up for Congress to restore some
version of this requirement. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder
quickly added their voices to that call. The chances of that happening are nil
if the GOP has its way.
The Supreme Court ruling was a dream come true for the
GOP. It accomplished in one fell swoop what GOP leaders for the past three
decades have loudly hinted they wanted done and that's to water down the
landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act to the point of irrelevancy. It floated several
trial balloons in Congress in 1981 and again in 2006. The Act came up for
renewal both times. But Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush ignored the calls
from GOP hardliners and even some of their advisors who wanted them to delay
signing the renewal authorization.
The argument was that the Act continues to punish the
South for its past history of blatant voting-discrimination. But that past, the
GOP claims, is just that, the past and the proof is the thousands of black and
Hispanic state and local elected officials from the South and Southwest and the
millions of black and Hispanic voters that are on the rolls in those states.
The Supreme Court obviously bought this argument. The Court majority
deliberately ignored two glaring facts. One is the well-documented present day
sneaky ways that local registrars devise ploys to limit or eliminate minority
voters. The other is the wave of voter suppression laws that GOP governors and
GOP controlled state legislatures and plopped on the books during the past few
years to shoo black and Hispanic voters from the polls. Even though black and
Hispanic voters did vote in big numbers in the 2012 election, in many districts
they still had to stand in endless lines, have their IDs thoroughly
scrutinized, had no bilingual ballots, found voting hours shortened, and had to
file legal challenges in state and federal courts to get injunctions to stop
the more onerous of the voter suppression laws from being enforced.
The GOP vote suppression ruses for the most part fell
flat on their face in 2012 when black and Hispanic voters ducked around the
fresh barriers put up and jammed the polls in near record numbers. They
provided the numbers that insured President Obama's reelection by a comfortable
margin. Though, the GOP managed to maintain its grip on the five Deep South
states, and other Old Confederacy states in the 2012 presidential election, almost
exclusively with the majority votes of white conservatives, the increased
number of black and Hispanics in the states, poses a mortal threat to continued
GOP dominance in those states. That is if there are no barriers propped up to
their registering and voting.
This is exactly why the GOP banked heavily on the Supreme
Court dumping the crucial provision in the Act that insured a fair voting
process. GOP leaders also knew that once
the conservative Court majority ruled in is favor that some Democrats in
Congress would almost certainly move to make-over the law. One obvious way is
to broaden out the preclearance provision to include other areas of the country
that have had or could have potential voting restriction issues and then
insuring that those jurisdictions be targeted for mandatory Justice Department
monitoring. This would remove from the table the GOP's ancient contention that
the Act unfairly targeted the South and some sections of the Southwest. This would easily pass constitutional muster
since it would not single any one district, region or state for restrictive
monitoring or Justice Department litigation.
But even this practical remake of the disputed parts of
the Act is anathema to the GOP. If proposed, GOP congressional leaders would
dither, delay, and loudly squeal again that voter discrimination is
non-existent. And that there is no need for adding another burdensome provision
to the Voting Rights Act. It would certainly die a quick death in the GOP
conservative controlled House. The only real chance to resuscitate the key provision
of the Act is a congressional overhaul. That requires that Democrats hold or
extend their numbers in the Senate and win back a majority in the House in the
2014 mid-term elections.
For the
time being, though, the harsh reality is that five judges essentially nullified
what two GOP presidents and Congress with overwhelming bi-partisan support for
the past near half century have routinely done. And that's to insure the much
fought for and prized Voting Rights Act has stayed intact on the books to insure
that a fair, equitable and democratic voting process remains the law of the
land. Don't expect the GOP to back that continued fight.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new ebook
is America on Trial: The Slaying of
Trayvon Martin ( Amazon ). He is an
associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al
Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson
Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica
Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
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