“Fighting Back On Voting Rights”: First The Struggle Will Begin In Texas, Then The NC Omnibus Voter Suppression Act of 2013
Attorney General Eric Holder has opened what will be an epic battle over whether our country will remain committed to equal rights at the ballot box. In a display of egregious judicial activism in late June, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Holder made clear last week he intends to fight back.
The struggle will begin in Texas, but it won’t end there. “We cannot allow the slow unraveling of the progress that so many, throughout history, have sacrificed so much to achieve,” Holder told the National Urban League’s annual conference.
He wasn’t exaggerating the stakes. From the moment the Supreme Court threw out Section 4 of the act, which subjected the voting laws in states and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to Justice Department scrutiny, conservative legislators in those places gleefully signaled their intention to pass laws to make it harder to vote. In addition, Texas re-imposed a redistricting map that a federal court had already ruled was discriminatory.
These hasty moves were unseemly but entirely predictable, proving that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in the case will become a Magna Carta for voter suppression. Without having to worry about “preclearance” from the Justice Department, legislators can go about their business of making it more difficult for voters who would throw them out of office to reach the polls — and of drawing racially gerrymandered districts that prolong their tenure. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg understood a logic here that escaped Roberts. “A governing political coalition,” she wrote in her dissent, “has an incentive to prevent changes in the existing balance of voting power.”
This in turn means that when a political party fares badly with minority voters, it will try to turn them away from the polling booths. That’s what segregationist Southern Democrats did in the past. Many Republican-controlled legislatures are doing it now.
Holder announced he was using Section 3, a different part of the Voting Rights Act that was left standing, to ask a federal court to re-subject Texas to preclearance. It is a less efficient way to achieve what the pre-gutted act allowed automatically, but it is the best that can be done for now. It would be better still if Congress reinstated a revised version of Section 4. In the meantime, the hope is to limit the damage of the high court’s folly — and perhaps also give other states pause before they rush into new discriminatory schemes.
“This is the department’s first action to protect voting rights following the [Supreme Court] decision, but it will not be our last,” Holder declared. His department is likely to move this week against the Texas voter-identification law, and to go to court eventually against other states that pass comparable statutes.
To get a sense of how bad these laws are, consider the bill Republicans rushed through both houses of North Carolina’s Legislature that should be called the Omnibus Voter Suppression Act of 2013. It reads like a parody written for Stephen Colbert’s show with its cornucopia of provisions that would make it as hard as possible for African-Americans, Latinos and young people to vote.
As the Charlotte Observer reported, it shortens the early-voting period, eliminates the opportunity to register and vote on the same day during that time, and ends pre-registration for teenagers 16 to 17. The bill also prevents counties from extending voting hours when lines are long — which they will be with the cutback on early voting days. It not only requires photo identification, but also narrows the list of what’s acceptable, eliminating college IDs, for example.
Oh, yes, and remember the old civic tradition of using all avenues to encourage people to register to vote, a favorite cause of that famously revolutionary group, the League of Women Voters? This bill would ban paid voter registration drives.
Throughout the world, our country proclaims its commitment to equal rights and broad democratic participation. We seem to be abandoning those ideals at home. You have to wonder what this will do to our witness on behalf of democracy.
It won’t shock you to learn that after Holder made his announcement, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas condemned the Obama administration for showing an “utter contempt for our country’s system of checks and balances.”
Actually, what Holder’s move shows is an utter contempt for efforts to deprive our fellow Americans of their right to cast a meaningful ballot. It is a contempt that all of us should feel.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, July 29, 2013
“You Can’t Gerrymander A Whole State”: The North Carolina GOP’s Extremism May Cost Their Party The U.S. Senate In 2014
Since the GOP took over both North Carolina’s state house and governorship for the first time in more than a century, the state has become a flashpoint, with extremist policies being put into place one after the other, almost as if conservatives were punishing the state for voting for President Obama in 2008.
The right-wing mania seems to have peaked, with abortion laws being injected into any legislation Republicans could get their hands on and the nation’s worst, most blatant voter suppression law.
Republican governor Pat McCrory has said he will sign the new women’s health restrictions — despite a campaign promise not to — and the voting law, though he hasn’t actually read it.
North Carolinians have been gathering every week for Moral Mondays at the state capitol, hoping their protests and the hundreds of resulting arrests will draw attention to the extremism coming out of the quintessential swing state.
But if people aren’t paying attention to North Carolina politics now, they will be, as the battle for the U.S. Senate in 2014 heats up and Democratic senator Kay Hagan defends her seat.
“North Carolina is the closest thing to the tipping point state in the Senate battle,” the New York Times‘ Nate Silver recently wrote.
Silver added, “Although North Carolina is increasingly purple in presidential election years, the coalition of African-Americans and college-aged voters that Democrats depend upon to win races in the state is less likely to turn out for midterm elections.”
And Republicans are well aware of this.
“By all accounts, there is no path to having a Republican majority leader that doesn’t lead through North Carolina,” Thom Tillis, the state House speaker and leading Republican Senate candidate, told the Washington Examiner.
While laws designed to suppress Democratic votes will certainly help Republicans, the controversies invoked by their policies are drawing the attention of the state’s growing unaffiliated voters and the nation.
Some have called North Carolina the “new Wisconsin,” which sounds promising for Republicans who were able to help Governor Scott Walker survive a recall. However, Democrats successfully took back the Senate in those recalls for a brief time, and only lost it again in 2012 due to gerrymandering.
You can’t gerrymander a whole state, and if there is a backlash against the GOP in North Carolina, it could cost Republicans the U.S. Senate.
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, July 29, 2013
“A Father’s Heartfelt Message”: Trayvon’s Legacy, Helping People To Open Their Eyes And Talk About Subjects They Wouldn’t Before
Tracy Martin readily admits he struggles with regular bouts of guilt over the fate of his 17-year-old son, Trayvon. He wasn’t at home in Sanford, Florida, the night his unarmed son was shot and killed as he walked home from the store with a bag of Skittles and a bottle of Arizona Ice Tea.
George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, was found not guilty of the second-degree murder of the teenager earlier this month after his lawyers argued it was self-defense.
“I think I feel the guilt that any father would feel who loses a child,’’ Martin told The Daily Beast. “There is a certain amount of guilt at not being able to save my son, and not being able to be there for him like he was for me when he saved me from a fire when he was 9 years old. I couldn’t do that for him as a parent and that is a very painful feeling to live with. But I also know, had I been home, I wouldn’t have heard the incident so I wouldn’t have been able to stop what happened.’’
Martin took a heartfelt message of fatherly love to Capitol Hill on Wednesday where he urged Congress to work to improve the educational and employment opportunities for young Latinos and African-Americans.
Only 52 percent of black males graduate from high school, compared with 78 percent of white, non-Latino males, according to a 2012 report from the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Black males are incarcerated at a rate more than nine times that of white males ages 18–19, according to the 2011 Bureau of Justice figures.
Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s delegate to Congress, and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL) organized the inaugural hearing of the Congressional Black Caucus on Black Men and Boys to discuss the many obstacles and issues that continue to face black men. Martin said President Obama’s speech last week referencing the murder and trial for his son only increased his resolve to work nonstop to change the lives of young men of color. He and Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, founded the Trayvon Martin Foundation last year to raise awareness of the way violent crime impacts the families of victims.
“I have to fight for Trayvon and all who look like him,’’ said Martin. “There is an assumption by many in this country that our boys aren’t valuable and don’t have the right to walk home with iced tea and Skittles without being considered criminals. There is an assumption that they aren’t raised well and aren’t loved. My son was loved and was raised to respect authority. He knew how to handle himself but that wasn’t enough that night.’’
Martin had regular father-and-son talks with Trayvon, and those conversations often included a mature, in-depth discussion about handling life as a black man in America.
“As a child gets older of course the conversation changes,’’ says Martin. “As Trayvon got older we didn’t talk about Disneyland anymore. We talked about life, decisions, and the future. I think this country feels black men aren’t fathers and aren’t there for their children. That is very far from the truth. Many black men are role models and that needs to be discussed.’’
Martin welcomed President Obama’s words last week on the need for more effort to uplift and support African-American men. He said it was timely and heartfelt despite a number of critical reviews by the Fox News network and PBS host Tavis Smiley.
“I thought he was speaking honestly from his own experience of being a black man and how he could have been Trayvon 35 years ago,’’ said Martin. “That was powerful and from deep in his heart, I think. His speech was very real. To have the most powerful man in the world talk about my son and what he’s meant to people was amazing, needed and very appreciated.’’
While speaking before Congress on Wednesday, Martin discussed the anguish he and Sybrina felt as their son’s name was slandered and demonized during Zimmerman’s trial.
“Trayvon was a teenager, a child. To hear people act as though he was someone on the same level as an adult man who’s lived life, had a job, and married was very hurtful for us. To have people put all the blame on my son who was unarmed and just walking home is something that is very difficult to digest still,” he said.
The Martin family has asked for reform of Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law, which permits the use of deadly force rather than retreating when a person has a reasonable fear of serious bodily harm.
“There should be a common sense part to that law that states you can’t get out of your vehicle, pursue someone, and become confrontational,’’ said Martin.
Benjamin Crump, the Martin family lawyer, described the teenager’s family as “extremely disturbed” by Juror B37, who appeared on a CNN show just a day after the not-guilty verdict was announced. That juror suggested that Martin “played a huge role” in his own death.
“That was really hard for Tracy and Sybrina to hear a juror blame their son for his own death,’’ said Crump. “It has no base in common sense and shows that she, along with the other jurors, never saw this case from the perspective of Trayvon. They never saw his point of view or tried to put themselves in his shoes as a kid minding his business and walking home. They didn’t consider that Zimmerman never identified who he was to Trayvon. Had he done that we probably wouldn’t be here today.’’
While singer Stevie Wonder has announced a boycott of the state of Florida until “stand your ground” laws are overturned, Martin says he and Trayvon’s mother will continue to work toward ensuring their son’s legacy is one that is remembered for generations to come.
“We will define Trayvon’s legacy as his parents, and I feel it will be a legacy of helping people to open their eyes and talk about subjects they wouldn’t before, like race and the role it still plays today,’’ said Martin. “I hope my son will be remembered as someone whose life and death changed minds and helped make the lives of many others much better.’’
By: Allison Samuels, The Daily Beast, July 25, 2013
“Yes, Mess With Texas”: To Ensure Fairness At The Polls, Southern States Still Require Scrutiny
Pro-tip: When you win a big court case giving you the go-ahead to suppress voter turnout for your political opponents, don’t gloat about it.
That is surely one of the lessons in the remarkable news that the U.S. Department of Justice is challenging new voting-rights laws in Texas and elsewhere even after the Supreme Court ruling that eviscerated the part of the Voting Rights Act that the feds had relied on for decades to challenge voting restrictions. What made the ruling especially galling was the celebration that followed from Republicans in states, including Texas, who immediately vowed to proceed with voting restrictions that had been challenged under the now-undermined part of the VRA.
The alacrity with which Texas, North Carolina and other states have rushed to take advantage of the ruling seriously weakened the sober conservative argument, from Chief Justice John Roberts and others, that Southern states no longer needed to be singled out for special scrutiny because they had long since left their discriminatory ways behind. And it all but invited Attorney General Eric Holder to take this new step, to announce that his department would still do everything in its power to ensure fairness at the polls.
This will of course be decried as executive overreach and an assault on checks and balances, but the case for declaring it such would be much easier to make if Texas and other states hadn’t been so gleeful in their rush to capitalize on the ruling. Texas takes the cake for the speed of its response, but North Carolina surely takes the prize for sheer brazenness: The legislation making its way through Raleigh is so extreme that it earned even a tut-tut from arch-conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore. The legislation will not only add a strict Voter ID requirement by the polls, but reduce early voting days from 17 to 10 (early voting has been used disproportionately by African-Americans in the state), prohibit counties from extending polling hours in extraordinary circumstances, like unusually long lines, and eliminate provisional ballots for voters who show up at the wrong precinct, among other changes. A separate bill seeks to give a tax penalty to parents whose dependent children register to vote somewhere in the state other than where the parents reside, a nifty way to discourage voting by college students.
What impact would the changes have? My colleague Nate Cohn, who has generally warned against over-reaction on voter suppression measures, ran the numbers and found that the Voter ID provision alone could swing enough votes to win the state for Republicans in a close statewide election—and that’s not accounting for the early voting cutbacks and other changes. The New York Times has declared North Carolina “first in voter suppression,” a judgment quoted approvingly by election-law expert Rick Hasen, also not one prone to overstatement.
Holder is now, essentially, using the giddy brazenness of the voting-restriction push in these states to justify federal challenges even in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling. Under the “pre-clearance” provision in Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act that was eviscerated by the ruling, a whole swath of states and municipalities, mostly in the South, had to submit voting law changes to the feds for approval as a matter of course. Holder is now threatening to use a different part of the Voting Rights Act, Section 3, which allows the federal government to demand pre-clearance rights by “bail-in.” As the Times puts it, if “the department can show that given jurisdictions have committed constitutional violations, federal courts may impose federal oversight on those places in a piecemeal fashion.” In other words, if the states’ recent track record on voting rights is sufficiently egregious, they may still need federal approval.
That is not to say, though, that the Supreme Court ruling was not enormously consequential. It will be much harder for the federal government to press its case by the Section 3 route. And whether the DOJ decides to make the effort to move against states will depend even more on which party holds the White House. As South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley boasted when I saw her on the stump in Greenville with Mitt Romney in early 2012, whereas the Obama administration had challenged her state’s stringent new Voter ID law, “President Romney [will say] that’s our right.”
By: Alec MacGillis, Senior Editor, The New Republic, July 26, 2013
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