Makes sense being as we’re now a post-racial post-democracy.
And I would almost guarantee that most of those polling places are in what’s called “the Black Belt” along those southern states. This decision needs to be revisited sooner, rather than later in another related court challenge.
Its despicable that Roberts has the nerve to believe racism no longer exists when he set out to make that decision as did the other conservative judges on the court. These fuckers should try living in the real world before being appointed to the Supreme Court. We need justices that haven’t lived in ivory towers and been exclusively studying on ivy league campuses their entire young adulthood before being elevated to some court. Real world experience counts for so much more, especially where empathy of others is required
Does John Roberts realize he’ll be laughed regularly for hundreds of years?
I think that this will be Exhibit A in a major lawsuit filed after the election, showing how these closures disproportionately affect Latinos and African-Americans. Being judicious about where to bring that suit will be important – ideally, ironically, either in North Carolina or South Carolina so that the ultimate decision is with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which issued the great decision on the North Carolina voter suppression law. Sadly, that doesn’t help this election, but may ensure the next one is more fair.
John Roberts is such a non-entity as a Chief Justice that he won’t even be remembered 20 years from now let alone laughed at for hundreds.
Well he’ll be talked about for the landmines he left in a couple of places. The biggest one was in the ACA decision where he agreed with the Obama Administration. Everybody was saying “hooray” and I was saying - holy shit he just destroyed one of the classic arguments for civil rights’ cases - the Commerce Clause. Said it was no longer valid as an argument and it was a hell of a useful tool because you can pretty much argue that denying almost anything to people will have a bad affect on interstate commerce.
He’ll be remembered in legal circles.
Let’s hope it’s more than laughed at; he ought to be excoriated for at least the next couple of centuries, the way Chief Justice Roger B. Taney is still excoriated for Dred Scott.
He is a closet bigot.
And it’s not just in the southern states; the Ohio Secretary of State has been busy with efforts to suppress minority voting, polling place closures among them. I heard this morning on MSNBC that Cuyahoga County (which includes the city of Cleveland) had only one early voting place. Joy Reid said that he had also been applying extreme scrutiny to voter signatures, so that even the slightest variation between a prospective voter’s signature and the signature on the registration record was enough to deny the voter a ballot (though I’m imagining that strict scrutiny only applies to certain types of voters, if you catch my drift).
But North Carolina came in for the most criticism; one of the commentators said it was the worst state in the country for voter suppression. After the cutting of the first week of early voting (during which some 70% of A-A early voters traditionally voted) was struck down by a federal judge as discriminatory and ordered re-instated, the NC officials re-instated it, but with very limited polling places in majority black areas and plenty of polling places in Republican strongholds.
Yeah those important parts of the Confederacy: Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada…
This isn’t a Academia vs “Real World” thing, as if one’s life experience is some how less “real” because one works in academia instead of the private sector. This is a Republican thing. This is the result of Republicans being allowed to hold any sort of power. If Republicans are allowed any sort of power that power is abused for partisan gain. Full Stop.
Quite right.
This should forever be called the John Roberts effect.
Don’t worry, they can all just text in their votes. That’s what the Trump campaign posted on Twitter, and you know they wouldn’t lie.
I live in the South and I’ve never heard it called the “Black belt”. It’s got nothing to do with Southern or Black. This is Republican crap and although the chart above cherry picks the problem in the South it’s going on everywhere there’s a GOP’er in charge of voting. I live in Florida which is a swing state. You don’t see it included in that map because although it’s in the South and has an uber GOP’er as Gov the GOP does not have a strong hold there. It can be beat so they mind their P’s and Q’s.
Texas is the big sinner as you can see. It’s not part of the South but the GOP there feel super threatened by Demographic changes. This is really a last hurrah in Texas. Soon it overcomes the GOP by shear force of numbers. In 10 years they won’t be able to close enough polling places to stop it.
Black Belt? Who came up with that?
From Wikipedia in case you don’t want to link to it. It goes back to at least the turn of the last century…and long before either you or I were born.
Many definitions and geographic delineations of the Black Belt have been made. One of the earliest and most frequently cited is that of educator Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He wrote in his 1901 autobiography, Up from Slavery, about the Black Belt:
The term was first used to designate a part of the country which was distinguished by the color of the soil. The part of the country possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense—that is, to designate the counties where the black people outnumber the white.
Scholar W. E. B. Du Bois also wrote about the Black Belt in his 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, describing the culture of rural Georgia.
I’m so oblivious. I didn’t even see that you posted the same thing as me. Sorry.
Among other things, Roberts said in Shelby County v. Holder:
Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.
Since it seems demonstrable that our country has not changed, etc., I wonder if any clever legal people are thinking of trying to get that decision relitigated in light of the many instances of voter discrimination that have occurred, legally addressed in and by numerous federal courts?
Sounds easier than getting Congress to act on this again. Don’t suppose Supreme Court justices (where justice is a title and not likely a descriptor) often feel accountable for the truth or consequences of their decisions, though.