How bad wll the fallout be from the SCOTUS skinning and gutting of the Voting Rights Act?

[cali]

Just devastating. That's how bad.

This is a long and very worthy read

<snip>

Today’s opinion by the Roberts Court was the most radical since Citizens United v. FEC and the worst voting rights decision in a century, since the Court upheld poll taxes and literacy tests in Giles v. Harris in 1903. “The Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decisionmaking,” wrote Ginsburg. “Quite the opposite. Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA.” Just as the Citizens United decision led to an explosion of unregulated dark money spending in US elections, so too will the loss of Section 5 encourage many more of the shadowy voter suppression attempts that we saw in 2012.

What will that mean in practice? Texas’ voter ID law, which was blocked under Section 5 by a federal court last year and could disenfranchise up to 800,000 registered voters without government-issued photo ID, will immediately go into effect. The states of the Old Confederacy will return to the pre-1965 playbook, passing new voter suppression laws that can only be challenged, after years of lengthy litigation, in often-hostile Southern courts, with the burden of proof on those subject to discrimination, rather than those doing the discriminating. Conservatives will be emboldened to challenge the parts of the VRA, like Section 2, that apply nationwide.

“The sad irony of today’s decision lies in its utter failure to grasp why the VRA has proven effective,” wrote Justice Ginsburg. “The Court appears to believe that the VRA’s success in eliminating the specific devices extant in 1965 means that preclearance is no longer needed. With that belief, and the argument derived from it, history repeats itself. The same assumption—that the problem could be solved when particular methods of voting discrimination are identified and eliminated—was indulged and proved wrong repeatedly prior to the VRA’s enactment. Unlike prior statutes, which singled out particular tests or devices, the VRA is grounded in Congress’ recognition of the ‘variety and persistence’ measures designed to impair minority voting rights. In truth, the evolution of voting discrimination into more subtle second-generation barriers is powerful evidence that a remedy as effective as preclearance remains vital to protect minority voting rights and prevent backsliding.”

There will be no easy fix in Congress. The body looked at updating how states were covered in Section 5, but no one could come up with a better answer than the draftees of the VRA in 1965. Changing the places covered by Section 5 would have blown up the entire bill. There was no political will or necessity to expand Section 5 nationwide, and “no objective statistical criteria could have added the most recent bad actors (Ohio and Florida) to the list of currently covered jurisdictions,” wrote Nate Persily, a law professor at Columbia University. “The fact that Section 5 was geographically targeted has always been seen as one of its constitutional saving graces.” Georgia Representative Charlie Norwood offered an amendment that would have exempted the entire Deep South and covered only Hawaii, a state with no history of racial discrimination in voting. The amendment was defeated 318 to 96.

Read more: What the Supreme Court Doesn’t Understand About the Voting Rights Act | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/174973/what-supreme-court-doesnt-understand-about-voting-rights-act#ixzz2XLw6uZPR

[liberal_at_heart]

1. States will no doubt make voting harder, but people got angry. Angry enough to stay in line for

hours and hours just to get to vote. The people will not stand for this. They will take to the streets over this one. It may not be right away, but come election time and they can't vote, people will take to the streets.

[Gregorian]

2. This will have a galvanizing effect. People will not stand for this.

After all, this is America. And that does mean something. It really isn't "just a piece of paper".

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. I kinda sorta disagree.

By fallout, we have to consider how the public reacts to GOP over-reactions and future voter suppression. I suspect that the general population's anger might have an impact not expected, nor intended by the Robes. With the added assistance from McConnell, Cantor and their merry band of neocons and tea baggers, we may be happily surprised at what happens in the near future.

Of course, it will not be pothole free.

[cali]

4. Perhaps I should have written immediate fallout

but I think I agree with the VRA experts who say this is a major setback.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. no doubt about that.

But humanity has a strange way of healing itself after some nasty events. Look at Germany after WWII, or the USA after George W. I suspect that more and more people will be mobilized because of this decision.

[Downwinder]

5. I think voter IDs will run your local taxes up.

Mail in ballots for school and city elections will be something they have not dealt with.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Could be very, very bad for Alaska's rural native villages.

We already had R's in the state legislature trying to pass voter photo ID laws when many of the villages don't even require people to have driver's licenses to drive and no DMV within hundreds of miles and no way to get to them. People out there travel by boat, four-wheeler, snow machine in the winter. It costs two or three hundred dollars (at least) to fly to a hub. They're also threatening to shut down some of the polling places, assuring that villagers will have nowhere to cast their vote.
It was because of Native issues that Alaska was under the VRA in the first place.

Did I mention that our R lieutenant governor is in charge of elections and is running for Mark Begich's seat. No conflict of interest there, no sirree.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. After reading the decision yesterday

It is truly in the hands of the US congress. They do nothing, (likely at the moment) it will be devastating short term.

They signaled this in 2010 with another case, and the standards should have been changed in 2006 precisely to avoid this. When you still have literacy tests in there, which have been banned for forty years in federal law.

I think medium to long term, we will have even more over reach, and a new lists will be compiled for section four. In the meantime...this will cause pain.

I should download today's decisions too.

Medium to long term we may even see people take to the streets again. Maybe...

[AlinPA]

8. My take is that the "nine states' wll now go full speed to inhibit minority voting. Other states,

controlled by the GOP - like PA, will follow with voter suppression measures with no federal enforcement.

[Jarla]

9. Yesterday, I was asking why the VRA formula had never been updated

So this is discouraging to read:

The body looked at updating how states were covered in Section 5, but no one could come up with a better answer than the draftees of the VRA in 1965. Changing the places covered by Section 5 would have blown up the entire bill. There was no political will or necessity to expand Section 5 nationwide, and “no objective statistical criteria could have added the most recent bad actors (Ohio and Florida) to the list of currently covered jurisdictions,” wrote Nate Persily, a law professor at Columbia University.