SCOTUS VRA Ruling: Another Hit on Historical Law that Protects Our Voting Rights

 

Current 6-3 Conservative-leaning Court

(Flexing harsh conservative stripes)

Breaking story of another historical USSC ruling issued (July 1, 2021). This one is not good for democracy and our guaranteed free, fair, safe, and secure elections, and our constitutional protected rights to vote for every American (and a not pick and choose system to ensure one side always wins).

The story here from Law & Crime with this stunning headline, and the key parts that follows:

“Supreme Court Erodes Voting Rights Act in 6-3 Vote: Conservatives ‘See No Racially Discriminatory Purpose’ in Arizona Precinct Rules”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday (July 1) again limited the scope of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) in an opinion that broke down along standard conservative lines.

Key Part of the Ruling Today:

The 6-3 conservative supermajority in March heard the latest high profile pair of consolidated cases:

(1) Brnovich v. DNC, and (2) Arizona Republican Party v. DNC.

Those two cases focused on Arizona’s current efforts to criminalize the “so-called vote harvesting and allowing ballots cast at the wrong precinct to be discarded.”

After this ruling, it now threatens further to weaken the 1965 Voting Rights Act – primarily Section 2 which a tool against the passage of laws alleged to have a racially discriminatory effect. 

This ruling focuses in particular on the “out-of-precinct policy.” 

Those rules prohibit counting provisional ballots if they were not cast at a voter’s designated polling site.

Noteworthy: Seems like that Justices Gorsuch and Thomas want to prevent people from suing at all when states limit our voting rights. 

Why — in his separate and terse concurrence, Justice Neil Gorsuch sets the stage for the further evisceration of the nation’s marquee voter protection law – the VRA (1965),

Noteworthy: In the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling (5-4 majority), the court mothballed the law’s Section 5, which then required states with a history of racial discrimination in voting to get certification in advance, or “pre-clearance,” that any election change they wanted to make would not be discriminatory. The Supreme Court did this by holding that the formula used to determine which states and localities had to follow the Section 5 protocols was out of date. Chief Justice Roberts said that section was basically outdated and no longer applicable (sic).

My 2 Cents: I’m not a lawyer of any kind, but I do believe I have good common sense on this issue – hope you do, too.

True, while Section 2 of the VRA addresses specifically things being the passage or law changes that allege to have a “racially discriminatory effect” but: couldn’t they have a regular voter impact as well unless discriminatory means only based on race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. 

Or am I overreaching on that point? 

Justice Kagan’s dissent (4 posts) is here – I totally agree with her.

Time will tell on this lases ruling, but I also think it's not a good sign for the life of the 1965 VRA. 

Also, I don’t believe that now is not the time for any major VRA changes, but we shall see. Stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by.