On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a question not touched for nearly 50 years â namely, the question of whether parts of the landmark Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 still stand the test of constitutionality, and specifically a section that has long plagued statesâ rights advocates. Unfortunately for liberals, who view the VRA as one of their landmark legislative achievements, the answer to that question may well be âno,â as many court analysts seem to have viewed the oral arguments in the case as either an unadulterated disaster for the government, or at least as a strong sign that a majority of the court is willing to consider striking down at least part of the act. And to add to the Leftâs consternation, Justice Antonin Scalia, known for his strongly worded opinions, attacked the motives behind reauthorizing the supposed touchstone of racial equality for being motivated by Congressional cynicism about race in an impromptu speech. Hereâs Scaliaâs statement from the transcript of the oral argument (emphasis added): Well, maybe it was making that judgment, Mr. Verrilli. But thatâs â thatâs a problem that I have. This Court doesnât like to get involved in â in racial questions such as this one. Itâs something that can be left â left to Congress. The problem here, however, is suggested by the comment I made earlier, that the initial enactment of this legislation in a â in a time when the need for it was so much more abundantly clear was â in the Senate, there â it was double-digits against it. And that was only a 5-year term. Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it. And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I donât think thatâs attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. Itâs been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. I donât think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless â unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that thereâs a good reason for it. Thatâs the â thatâs the concern that those of us who â who have some questions about this statute have. Itâs â itâs a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose â they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act. Even the name of it is wonderful: The Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future? This statement touched off a furious reaction from the liberal corner of the blogosphere and commentariat, and understandably so, given that Scalia more or less took a cleaver to one of their most treasured sacred cows. Apparently there were gasps even within the Court chamber when Scalia made his comment about âracial entitlement,â and Justice Sonia Sotomayor furiously challenged Bert Rein, the attorney arguing for striking down the act (and by extension, Scalia) afterwards: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Do you think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement in Section 5? MR. REIN: No. The Fifteenth Amendment protects the right of all to vote and -_ JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: I asked a different question. Do you think Section 5 was voted for because it was a racial entitlement? MR. REIN: Well, Congress -_ JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Do you think there was no basis to find that -_ MR. REIN: â was reacting â may I say Congress was reacting in 1964 to a problem of race discrimination which it thought was prevalent in certain jurisdictions. So to that extent, as the intervenor said, yes, it was intended to protect those who had been discriminated against. If I might say, I think that Justice Breyer -_ JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Do you think that racial discrimination in voting has ended, that there is none anywhere? Readers might understandably wonder what prompted this outburst, and also, just what on earth the case was about in the first place. As such, weâve put together the following handy explanation for the fireworks. Essentially, striking down preclearance would allow states a much freer hand in terms of cracking down on certain forms of voter fraud, or to redraw their Congressional districts such that districts that formerly were designed to be âsafeâ and keep specific minority members of Congress in power could suddenly become competitive. This would threaten many âsafeâ Democratic seats, and would also act as a symbol that the Court believes the racial tensions of the 60′s are a thing of the past. In other words, it would be a nightmare for the portion of the Left that focuses on identity politics. In this context, the frenzied reaction to Justice Scaliaâs remarks makes even more sense, given that Scalia declined to even accept the idea that those voting for the VRA in the present day had noble motives. Rather, he attacked supporters of the VRA for cynicism and also used the phrase âracial entitlement,â which makes those who see racism as an enduring fact of American society see red because it suggest their concerns are not valid. More to the point, Sotomayorâs valiant rearguard action notwithstanding, the liberal Justices mostly spent their time trying to get the argument against the VRA dismissed not by defending the VRA, but rather by arguing that Shelby County had no standing to sue, which some may see as an implicit concession that the VRAâs preclearance measures are not worth defending. Adding to this problem, in the process of making their argument, those same Justices said things that are likely to offend conservative residents of the South, and especially of Alabama: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: May I ask you a question? Assuming I accept your premise, and thereâs some question about that, that some portions of the South have changed, your county pretty much hasnât. MR. REIN: Well, I -_ JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: In â in the period weâre talking about, it has many more discriminating -_240 discriminatory voting laws that were blocked by Section 5 objections. There were numerous remedied by Section 2 litigation. You may be the wrong party bringing this. MR. REIN: Well, this is an on-face challenge, and might I say, Justice Sotomayor -_ JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: But thatâs the standard. And why would we vote in favor of a county whose record is the epitome of what caused the passage of this law to start with?[...] JUSTICE KAGAN: But think about this State that youâre representing, itâs about a quarter black, but Alabama has no black statewide elected officials. [...] If you use the number of Section 5 enforcement actions, Alabama would again be the number two State on the list. I mean, youâre objecting to a formula, but under any formula that Congress could devise, it would capture Alabama. No doubt, many residents of Alabama would object to the idea that their state is the second most racist in the country and still unavoidably has to be policed by the Federal government. And indeed, the argument from both sides during the case played on ideas that at least some people in the country would find offensive. These were eschewed by the courtâs swing vote, Justice Kennedy, who sent mild signals that he was favoring overturning preclearance. Still, both liberals assuming the worst and conservatives feeling optimistic should be wary of over-confidence about their predictions. Oral arguments are an infamously poor predictor of what will happen in a case when the Court rules. For instance, in HHS v. Florida (also known as the Obamacare case), oral arguments went terribly for the government, yet they ended up winning the case. The Voting Rights Act is not dead yet. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...at-the-supreme-court-on-wednesday-we-explain/
The VRA is the high water mark of unconstitutional federal overreach. It should make no difference whatsoever if a state is run by the KKK. The federal government has no right under the constitution to force the state to come to it on bended knee and ask permission to change its laws. The justification is that these states have a poor record of protecting minority rights. To illustrate how weak an argument that is, would any member of the Court support a law that lessened Fourth Amendment protections for career criminals? There is no requirement of good behavior to enforce Constitutional rights. The rights here are crucial to state sovereignty, eg the right to decide on your own laws concerning voting. The Constitution explicitly grants that right to the states. If the states enact laws that violate the Constitution, those laws can still be litigated in the normal fashion laid out in the Constitution.