Originally published at: Louisiana v Callais: The Republicans Justices Are Getting Ready to Finish Off the Voting Rights Act - TPM – Talking Points Memo
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes. On October 15, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Louisiana v. Callais and Robinson v. Callais, a pair of consolidated cases that threaten what little remains of the federal government’s ability to protect voters…
1 Like
Hey, we’ve solved that pesky racism problem. I mean Barack Obama, Michael Jordan, Beyonce…c’mon, it’s over. Time to stop making white boys feel bad about themselves; that’s the real racism.
11 Likes
“If all politics is local, then in the South all politics is racial”, former Georgia Senator Max Cleland.
In 1984 I was living in New Orleans and had a job that caused me to travel throughout much of Louisiana. While it had been less then 20 years since Blacks had actually gained the right to vote in Louisiana, they also gained some other rights and benefits, like jobs as bus drivers, police men, teachers, et al. The White people had not accepted these changes easily and were still complaining about them and would often say how much better were White bus drivers.
While I was not very much involved in politics, it was also striking that while all the White people, men and women, in Louisiana knew how Ronald Reagan was screwing them but loved Reagan because “he is screwing Black people worse”.
For full disclosure, “he is screwing Black people worse” is not a direct quote because the White people of Louisiana never said “Black people”.
The point is RACE is still the major axis of our politics and especially in the old confederacy. The South, the poorest region of the country that benefits most from Democratic policies and is hurt most by Republican policies is the base of the Republican Party because the majority of White voters are willing to pay a heavy price to hurt Black people.
11 Likes
Rev Dr. Martin Luther King fought and died for the voting rights act, his number one request of President Johnson to insure equal rights for all minorities. What a sad time to be alive with the likes of John Roberts making decisions for our democracy.
7 Likes
What is sure to be one major factor in this case, as it was in previous Voting Rights Act cases, is the distinction between racial gerrymandering and partisan political gerrymandering. While SCOTUS has held that racial gerrymandering violates the Voting Rights Act, it has also held that partisan political gerrymandering does not, nor does it violate the 14th Amendment. Those accused of racial gerrymandering consistently insist that it was done for political, not racial reasons. As a practical matter, there’s little to no difference between the outcomes of racial and political gerrymandering, and to date, this SCOTUS has accepted the bogus claims that there is a difference in order to vindicate the racist/political election rigging.
As a matter of law, both forms of gerrymandering violate the Constitution’s provision that the states are guaranteed a republican form of government, in which a state’s government and Congressional representation will accurately reflect the state’s population. Gerrymandering of any sort eliminates that requirement and prevents republican government. Any SCOTUS devoted to enforcing the Constitution would invalidate all gerrymandering at once. Instead, this SCOTUS continues to operate in a blatantly partisan manner, continuing the corruption of elections first initiated by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry in our nations earliest days. One would hope that SCOTUS would, for once, use its disdain for precedent to put an end to this pernicious behavior. One does not, however, expect that to happen.
8 Likes
Or Clarence f’ing Thomas. My god.
3 Likes
You’d be amazed at how often I’ve heard exactly this argument from my Republican friends. That, and piously intoning how MLK Jr said something about “not judging a man by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.”
(You can add that one! Your summary was good.)
Okay, beating the gong yet again. A big part of the problem is the antiquated 1700s-vintage concept of having “one representative for one parcel of land.” Chosen via winner take all.
In the last two centuries, other countries have begun using more modern and fair schemes for representation, not as prone to cheating as our rusty old Constitution mandates. I know Bill Clinton caught hell for looking at a potential Cabinet member who had these radical ideas, but hell. Nothing Bill Clinton ever did would not have been condemned by the Republican Party.
We need candidates for office to stand up and propose modernizing the Constitution’s means of selecting representatives. And abolish the Senate.
1 Like
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear – the Rednecks ride again! Give the nation back to a Confederate state zeitgeist. Ah yes, things were better then. And those Young Republicans who think that men, women and children thrown into gas chambers is a big joke. Well, they’re just kids, I guess.
Yes, but we have to have fair voting to carry that off.
SCOTUS will sabotage fair voting. That’s what they’ve been paid for, don’t ya know.
Roberts, like his intellectual predecessor Dred Scott author Roger Taney, is a White Supremacist. Shelby v Holder is a key point in Roberts war to prevent minorities from voting or obtaining representation. Along with the Presidential Immunity decision which Roberts crafted to establish a Trump Presidential dictatorship and immunize Trump from crimes and Citizens United which ensconced the right of billionaire “donors” to Supreme Court justices Alito and Thomas to buy elections, it stands out as among the worst decisions ever made by a corrupt Supreme Court determined to.
The racist Supreme Court disguises its racism by claiming that it is merely legalizing political gerrymandering, not racial gerrymandering. Both concepts are toxic to democracy by design. The distinction Roberts would draw is that the Court is “only” declaring the opinions of African-Americans minority Americans a legitimate target of suppression instead of explicitly stating that Black America has no rights which White America has any obligation to recognize. The effects are the same and Roberts knows it as his longtime friend and former Republican Appeals Court Judge Michael Luttig has observed.