Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
This reporting by Morgan Kousser at Reuters blows away the disingenuous sophistry of Chief Justice John Roberts in Shelby County v. Holder (and echoed by every pundit in the conservative media entertainment complex right-wing noise machine). Gutting the landmark civil rights legislation:
The Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision on Tuesday essentially cast aside the key component of the nation’s most important civil rights legislation.
The five “conservative” justices castigated Congress for putting too much emphasis on history by failing to update the “coverage formula” in Section 4 of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Section 4 specifies which states and local jurisdictions must “pre-clear”
with the Justice Department or the Washington district court all
changes in election laws – anything from adding voter ID regulations to
redistricting. Areas now subject to this federal oversight have had a
substantial history of voter discrimination.
Chief Justice John Roberts, in writing for the 5-4 majority, conceded
that the Voting Rights Act is largely responsible for a decline in
blatant voting racial discrimination efforts. Yet he declared the
federal oversight program “unconstitutional”
on the grounds that it did not reflect “current conditions.” Instead,
he invited this most dysfunctional of Congresses to “draft another
formula.”
But the chief justice is wrong.