Every single day since November 5, 2008, wingnuts have asserted
they want to “take their country back,” and yesterday the highest court
in the land obliged them and sent the nation back to February 2, 1870;
the day prior to ratification of the 15
th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution. Despite the increasing level of racism infecting
America, the conservative Supreme Court officially endorsed, and
enforced, the GOP’s state-sanctioned racism and officially announced the
death knell of democracy in states controlled by repugicans that
heartened neo-nazis and state rights activists. The High Court
granted permission to repugican states to nullify the 15
th Amendment’s guarantee that “
The
right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude,” and called into question whether or not “
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
The arbiter of all things legal and Constitutional in the United
States ruled that the United States Congress no longer has the power to
enforce the 15th Amendment by appropriate legislation, and transferred
that power to the Koch-supported American Legislative Exchange Council
(ALEC) who will in turn direct their conservative surrogates to announce
what is appropriate and who is allowed to vote in the states. The 5
ALEC Justices did not find anything in the Voting Rights Amendment was
unconstitutional, but that the judgment of the United States Congress is
no longer valid or appropriate.
The SCOTUS Blog in plain English
explained that “
Section
4 of the Voting Rights Act, which sets out the formula used to
determine which state and local governments must comply with Section 5′s
preapproval requirement is unconstitutional and can no longer be used.
Thus, although Section 5 survives, it will have no actual effect.”
In plainer English, the Supreme Court struck down the normally
bi-partisan enforcement provision of the Voting Rights Act that, for all
intents and purposes, gives ALEC power to disenfranchise people of
color’s voting rights. The fact that the High Court eliminated the
preapproval requirement based on racial discrimination which is the
impetus of ALEC voter suppression laws, leaves Congress no room to enact
new legislation ALEC cannot easily override with a contrary state law.
The repugicans know full well that African Americans, and minorities in general,
would vote for Democrats and not against their own self-interests like
their white Southern counterparts, and to remedy that inconvenient
situation, repugicans passed ALEC voter restriction laws to
disenfranchise minority (read Democratic) voters. When the Attorney
General challenged ALEC’S voter suppression legislation in the states,
ALEC appealed to its servants on the High Court to rule that ALEC, and
not Congress, the Justice Department, or the 15
th Amendment
designates who has the right to vote and who is legally restricted from
participating in the election process. Doubtless that if African
Americans, and minorities in general, supported repugican candidates,
neither ALEC nor the High Court would disenfranchise people of color
from having their voices heard.
Wingnuts and 10
th Amendment advocates cheered that, in their opinion, the High Court rightfully gave former Confederate states “
the same rights as Northern states to set their own voting laws,”
but until 2011 when repugicans gained control of some Northern states,
there was no concerted effort to deny people of color the right to vote
in Northern states. The great push to disenfranchise minority voters is
the work of the Koch-sponsored ALEC whose template legislation mirrored
Jim Crow laws’ effects and the VRA gave the Justice Department
oversight to prevent Confederate states for restricting participation by
people of color. President Obama expressed his disappointment “
with the Supreme Court’s decision today” and said that “
For
nearly 50 years, the Voting Rights Act – enacted and repeatedly renewed
by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress – has helped secure the right
to vote for millions of Americans. Today’s decision invalidating one of
its core provisions upsets decades of well-established practices that
help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting
discrimination has been historically prevalent.” What the President
did not say, to his credit, is that although there has been progress in
securing voting rights over the past 50 years, repugicans have been
invalidating the VRA since his election in 2008 beginning with their
assault on ACORN.
President Obama and Senator Al Franken called
on Congress to pass legislation strengthening the Voting Rights Act,
but it seems to be a futile call because really; what grounds are there
to base new legislation on? The ALEC laws suppressed student, seniors,
poor, and minority voter rights, but Congress can hardly cite education,
age, and economic grounds to empower the Justice Department to prevent repugicans from passing voter suppression laws. The likelihood of any
new legislation even getting out of a committee is slim to none, and
with the repugicans in control of the House there is no way Boehner
will allow legislation make it to the floor that gives potential
Democratic voters fair access to the ballot box. Doubtless the wingnut court is well aware of the barrier they erected to any new
Congressional action and it is why the SCOTUS blog said the ruling meant
“
Section 5 has no effect” even though it was not ruled unconstitutional.
To say the wingnuts on the Supreme Court are activists in league
with repugicans and ALEC is an understatement and it appears there is
no end to their service to repugican cabal's machinations to end representative
democracy in America. The court cannot possibly claim racial
discrimination is vacant from America any more than they can claim
corporations are not in control of two branches of the government.
Critics of the ruling claim the Court set Americans’ right to vote back
50 years, but this ruling did more than give ALEC and repugicans free
rein to disenfranchise minority voters in the South because they
effectively opened the door for any and all restrictions on voting
whether it is a state’s right to demand a Voter ID, eliminate early
voting, or restrict voter registration drives. It is true the Court just
returned the South to Jim Crow, but they also gave states the right to
impose any requirements ALEC can devise to subvert democracy with
impunity and further divide America and strengthen former Confederate
state efforts to restrict minority voting.
What the wingnut court accomplished besides handing ALEC the
right to restrict minority voters in the South is effectively abolishing
the 15
th Amendment. Remember, none of ALEC’s voter
suppression laws are worded to restrict minority voting, but they do
specifically target minorities who are most adversely affected by repugican policies. Now there is little Congress can do to enforce
equal voting rights and the wingnut Court certainly knew their
decision took the remaining enforcement out of Congress’s hands and
handed it to ALEC. It should be no surprise though, the wingnuts
have handed down one decision after another that support ALEC’s
corporate maneuvers and now they have taken away the last vestige of
fair elections in Southern states that portends hazardous times for
states that most need representatives for the people. ALEC came to power
during the Reagan junta and thirty years later they control
every repugican state and the High Court just empowered them to control
elections throughout the former Confederacy and there is little
Congress can do to halt their power grab. The calls for new
Congressional legislation are praiseworthy, but the Supreme Court took
Congress’s power to enforce a crucial Amendment out of their hands and
sent it the way of the rest of America’s democracy; straight to ALEC and
doubtless they have templates on file to accomplish what the John
Bircher Koch brothers have panted for over the past decade and are a
little closer to realizing; a fascist corporatocracy.
