Much has changed in America since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was first approved, and we can’t blame those living in the 16 states that must get approval from the Justice Department or a federal court in order to revise their election laws for feeling the weight of history. The Deep South of the 21st century is not the same as the days of poll taxes, literacy tests and assassinated civil rights leaders. But how different is it today from seven years ago? That’s when Congress last renewed one of this country’s most important pieces of civil rights legislation — including the section that places this burden of proof on states with long histories of suppressing minority voters. It wasn’t even close, nor was it partisan. The House and Senate voted 390 to 33 and 98 to 0, respectively, to extend the law by another 25 years, the fourth extension since 1965. More than anything else, that fact should weigh heavily as the Supreme Court on Wednesday considers the case brought by Shelby County, Ala., where officials regard the pre-clearance requirement as an unconstitutional burden. Courts have upheld the Voting Rights Act numerous times over the years (including in the Shelby case), so surely such an argument must turn on the claim that the basic patterns of life in places like Alabama have changed completely. Yet couldn’t the Congress of 2006 somehow have picked up on that?
Perhaps that’s because the reality is not quite so rosy. Yes, you may not find lynch mobs patrolling the streets, but the desire to suppress the minority vote seems to still burn brightly in many of these states. That was evident in the last election cycle after numerous jurisdictions — admittedly, including some not covered by the pre-clearance requirement in Section 5 of the act, like Ohio and Pennsylvania — adopted elaborate state-issued photo ID requirements that seemed designed not to address fraud (of which there is virtually no evidence) but to prevent some — the poor, minorities and the elderly in particular — from casting a vote.
That some states are targeted and some are not relates to their histories. It’s not unequal treatment if there are historic voting patterns to back up the assertion that some states are more prone to racial discrimination than others. This represents a reasonable rationale for requiring those states to bear the burden of proof in matters of election law. It would be one thing if the Justice Department had found no opportunities to exercise this authority in recent years, but that is clearly not the case.
Full Article: Supreme Court should uphold Voting Rights Act – baltimoresun.com.