“Welcome back, Jim [Crow]. You been gone a long time.” – Charlie Pierce
Kevin Drum on voter ID and the recent Supreme Court decision re the Voting Rights Act:
So here’s your nickel summary. If a law is passed on a party-line vote, has no justification in the historical record, and is highly likely to harm black voting, that’s OK as long as the legislature in question can whomp up some kind of neutral-sounding justification. Judicial restraint is the order of the day. But if a law is passed by unanimous vote, is based on a power given to Congress with no strings attached, and is likely to protect black voting, that’s prohibited unless the Supreme Court can be persuaded that Congress’s approach is one they approve of. Judicial restraint is out the window. Welcome to the 21st century.
See also John Holbo on the Supreme Court’s intellectual gymnastics. (To answer Holbo’s rhetorical question: It is a power grab. Pure and simple.)
See also Charlie Pierce:
They’re brief posts and all worth reading.
Background reading: Katz, Ellen D., Aisenbrey, Margaret, Baldwin, Anna, Cheuse, Emma and Weisbrodt, Anna, Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2006. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1029386