Civil & Human Rights

U.S. Supreme Court to reexamine Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

After witnessing the most overt and blatant GOP voter suppression efforts in this election that we have seen in years, the "Felonious Five" of the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear a legal challenge to Section 5 preclearance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog.com, Court to rule on voting rights law:

Acting three days after the nation’s minority voters showed that they
have increased and still growing power in U.S. elections, the Supreme
Court agreed on Friday to
rule on a challenge to Congress’s power to protect those groups’ rights
at the polls.  The Court said it would hear claims that Congress went
beyond its authority when it extended for another twenty-five years the
nation’s most important civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act,
originally passed in 1965 and renewed four times since then.

Specially at issue is the constitutionality of the law’s Section
5, the most important provision, under which nine states and parts
of seven others with a past history of racial bias in voting must get
official clearance in Washington before they may put into effect any
change in election laws or procedures, no matter how small.   The Court
came close to striking down that section three years ago, but
instead sent Congress clear signals that it should update the law so
that it reflects more recent conditions, especially in the South. 
Congress did nothing in reaction.

That would be because the U.S. Supreme Court does not get to legislate policy. The Congress does. The Court only decides whether Congress acted within the scope of its constituional authority, which it clearly did in this case, as the Court has held many times since 1965. [Note: Congress reauthorized the VRA most recently in 2006, by a vote of 390 to 33 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate.]

The Court accepted the voting rights case from Shelby County, Ala. 

Election law reforms are on the table

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Participating in the civic duty of voting should not be a test of physical endurance. This is not a reality TV show of "Survivor." The long waits in line to vote, exceeding eight hours in some locations around the country, is unacceptable in the most technologically advanced country on Earth.

Now I realize that this was not a bug but a feature in several states, e.g., Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Forida, where hyper-partisan secretaries of state sought to make voting more difficult and a challenge to certain voters — college students, the poor, minorities, and the elderly — because they tend to vote Democratic.

But far more frequently it is because of poor logistical management, e.g., not enough polling locations, not enough voting booths, not enough ballots, not enough poll workers, old equipment that breaks down, etc. Again, I realize that this is not a bug but a feature in several states. This is a classic form of voter suppression. See this Hart Research study sponsored by the AFL-CIO which found that:

16 percent of Obama voters waited more than 30 minutes to vote, versus
only 9 percent of Romney voters. Strikingly, 24 percent of Latino
voters, and 22 percent of African Americans, waited longer than 30
minutes, while only 9 percent of whites did.

President Obama mentioned the long lines to vote in his victory speech Tuesday night and said "By the way, we we have to fix that" to loud applause.

In a report at the Washington Post today Obama faces a host of tough issues as second term begins is buried this passage:

[Obama] also made a glancing reference to another issue that many Democrats,
and Obama himself, have elevated recently to a possible priority in a
second term: political reform.

A package of legislation could include bills to make voting easier
across the country and a constitutional amendment to invalidate the
Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed
corporations, labor unions and other interest groups to spend unlimited
amounts of money on behalf of candidates.

Asked two months before Election Day what
he would do about “the corrupting influence” of money in politics,
Obama said he would “seriously consider” such a push, noting that “even
if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the
super PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.”

Some state efforts to make it more difficult for people to vote and
the long lines Tuesday outside some polling stations — many of them in
urban neighborhoods where Obama was expected to do well — have drawn
calls over the campaign and in its immediate aftermath for an overhaul
of U.S. election laws.

Latino vote critical to President Obama’s victory

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

No matter how you look at exit poll data for the 2012 election, there is no question that Latinos helped to decisively determine its outcome. Kathleen Geier writes at the Political Animal blog, The growing power of the Latino vote:

Where the Latino vote is concerned, Barack Obama crushed Mitt Romney.
CNN’s exit poll shows Obama winning 71% of that vote, and the polling
organization Latino Decisions measured even bigger gains for Obama,
showing that Obama beat Romney by a whopping 75% to 23% among Latinos.
In the electoral college, the Latino vote was crucial to Obama,
particularly in the battleground states of Colorado and Nevada, which Obama won, and Florida (which, as of this writing, is undecided).

These results are part of a long, and from the Republican point of
view, worrisome trend. According to official exit polls, Republican
presidential candidates won 44% of the Latino vote in 2004, 31% in 2008, and 27% in 2012. Moreover, Latinos are continuing to grow as a share of the electorate: they were 8% of voters in 2004, 9% in 2008, and 10% in 2012.

* * *

It’s not merely that the G.O.P. has become the anti-immigrant party;
the G.O.P.’s economic message does not appeal to Latinos either. Polls
of Latino voters show that the economy is their top concern, with immigration a distant second. Latinos tend to find Democratic policies far more appealing; by wide margins, they like Obamacare and disagree with a Republican-style, slash-spending-only approach to the deficit.

Beyond that, there is good reason to believe that Latino voters’
alienation from the G.O.P. goes deeper than their dislike of the
G.O.P.’s positions on immigration and the economy. Republican policies
such as Arizona’s infamous show-me-your-papers law and the ban, also courtesy of Arizona, on Mexican-American studies classes have a very obvious, and very nasty, racist intent and impact.

In addition, the racist treatment
Republicans meted out to historic Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
will not soon be forgotten by Latinos. Latinos have also seen the
nonstop parade of racism
Republicans have directed against Barack Obama over the past four
years, and surely they know that the white Republicans who judge Obama
by his skin color are likely to feel similarly about Latinos. Republican
racism may be a key reason why Latinos report they were quite
enthusiastic about voting this time around, even more so than in 2008.

Finally, on top of the nastily racist policies and actions of the
Republicans, there’s also the fact that the G.O.P. doesn’t even bother
trying to court the Latino vote any more.

* * *

Latinos, like most humans, know when they’re not wanted. And since the
Republicans don’t show any signs — yet — of wanting to invite anyone
except white people, and preferably white people who older, male,
married, and Christian at that, to their Grand Old Party, Latinos are
likely to continue to flock to the Democrats en masse. For as long as
that continues to happen, the Republicans will need all the luck they
can get if they wish to become America’s majority party.

UPDATE: The New York Times reports, A Record Latino Turnout, Solidly Backing Obama:

Defying predictions that their participation would be lackluster, Latinos turned out in record numbers on Tuesday and voted for President Obama
by broad margins, tipping the balance in at least three swing states
and securing their position as an organized force in American politics
with the power to move national elections.

A big win for gay marriage rights on election day

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: After gay marriage rights died at the polls 32 times in the past, on Tuesday they passed for the first time in at least two states, and changes in state legislatures makes securing gay marriage rights more likely. Same-sex marriage victories go beyond Maine and Maryland: Supporters of gay marriage succeeded Tuesday … Read more