Courts & Law

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The constitutional rights of same-sex couples advanced incrementally today, but it was not a landmark decision establishing a bright-line constitutional equal protection right to same-sex marriage.

The U.S. Supreme Court today in United
States v. Windsor struck down Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional in a 5-4 decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy, as he has in other gay rights cases, wrote the majority opinion of the court, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. The court held that DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by Fifth Amendment equal protection. "DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty."

What is important in this decision is that the court adopts a "heightened scrutiny" standard of review, rather than the "rational basis" standard of review previously applied by courts in these cases. Justice Kennedy writes there is a "careful consideration" standard: In determining whether a law is
motivated by improper animus or purpose, discriminations of an unusual
character especially require careful consideration. DOMA cannot survive
under these principles.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Civil rights leader and icon Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who was nearly beaten to death on Bloody Sunday marching for the right to vote, was interviewed by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC today about the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County. John Lewis: SCOTUS ‘stabbed’ civil rights law ‘in its very heart’:

Georgia Congressman Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights leader for the last five decades, sharply criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to strip a key enforcement mechanism from the Voting Rights Act, enacted nearly a half century ago to protect minority voters.

“What the Supreme Court did today is stab the Voting Rights Act of
1965 in its very heart,” Lewis told Mitchell Tuesday, calling the 5-4
decision to strike down the formula Congress used to determine which
districts require federal oversight of voting rules “a major step back.”

“We may not have people being beaten today, maybe they
are not being denied the right to participate or to register to vote,
they’re not being chased by police dogs or trampled by horses. But in
the 11 states of the old Confederacy and even in some of the states
outside of the South, there’s been a systematic, deliberate attempt to
take us back to another period. These men that voted to strip the Voting
Rights Act of its power, they never stood in unmovable lines.  They
never had to pass a so-called literacy test. It took us almost a hundred
years to get where we are today. So will it take another hundred years
to fix it, to change it?”

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Well, that didn't take long. Demonstrating just how wrong the Supreme Court was in Shelby County, the state of Texas, a covered jurisdiction with a long and sordid history of minority voter suppression, took the court's opinion as a green-light to engage in unbridled voter suppression.

The National Journal reports, That Was Quick: Texas Moves Forward With Voter ID Law After Supreme Court Ruling:

Just hours after the Supreme Court handed down a ruling
that guts parts of the Voting Rights Act, Texas is moving forward with a
controversial voter ID law that state Attorney General Greg Abbott
hopes to implement right away.

"With today's decision, the state's voter ID law will take effect immediately," Abbott said in a statement to the Dallas Morning News. "Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government."

The Texas law requires voters to show photo identification to vote—a
measure that was blocked by the Justice Department, arguing the law
could discriminate against racial minorities. At the time, Attorney
General Eric Holder called the law a "poll tax."

* * *

Although the Justice Department still maintains the right to approve
voting-rights laws in counties that have historically implemented
discriminatory laws against minorities, Congress now needs to determine
those areas.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Steve Benen reports, Leahy vows 'immediate action' on Voting Rights Act:

With the future of the Voting Rights Act back in the hands of lawmakers, it's heartening to see that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) wasted no time this morning in vowing action.

"Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has protected minorities of all
races from discriminatory practices in voting for nearly 50 years, yet
the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the coverage formula
effectively guts the ability of Section 5 to protect voters from
discriminatory practices. I could not disagree more with this result or
the majority's rationale. The Voting Rights Act has been upheld five
times by the Supreme Court on prior occasions, and Section 5 was
reauthorized and signed into law by a Republican President in 2006 after
a thorough and bipartisan process in which Congress overwhelmingly
determined that the law was still vital to protecting minority voting
rights and that the coverage formula determining the jurisdictions to be
covered was still applicable. Several lower court decisions in recent
years have found violations of the Voting Rights Act and evidence of
intentional discrimination in covered jurisdictions. Despite this sound
record, and the weight of history, a narrow majority has decided today
to substitute its own judgment over the exhaustive legislative findings
of Congress.

As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I intend to take immediate
action to ensure that we will have a strong and reconstituted Voting
Rights Act that protects against racial discrimination in voting."