Justice Kennedy Questions 'Fairness' of Voting Rights Act

[bigtree]

WASHINGTON —

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who in recent years has been the deciding vote on race cases, said Wednesday he believes the 1965 Voting Rights Act has prevented bias discrimination in the covered states but that it may now, decades after passage, be unfairly punishing some states over others.

The disputed provision gives the Justice Department authority to review proposed election-law changes in nine states, mostly in the South, and several counties and municipalities where race discrimination has historically been most flagrant. The act, passed in 1965, has been repeatedly renewed by Congress and upheld by the court over the years. At issue now is Congress's 2006 renewal of the act.

Kennedy suggested by many of his questions that he thought the covered states were being forced "to surrender" their powers to the federal government.

"This is a great disparity in treatment," he said at one point, emphasizing the burden on the covered states to bring their proposed election law changes to the federal government . . .

Lawyer Gregory Coleman, representing a Texas utility district that challenged the law as unconstitutional, said the "unremitting and defiant" bias in voting that Congress targeted in the 1965 law does not exist anymore.

"We are in a different day," insisted Coleman, who mentioned Obama's election in legal filings but not in the courtroom Wednesday.


read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2009-04-29-scotus-voting-rights-act_N.htm

[dflprincess]

1. No the "unremitting and defiant" doesn't exist anymore

Prior to 1965 minorities couldn't even register to vote. Now, as we learned from Florida in 2000, they can register but they'll be erased from the voting rolls before election day and won't find out about it until it's too late.

[DebbieCDC]

2. We're in a different day all right

With all the new ways that have been developed to circumvent the VRA -- voter roll purges, police presence at polling places, less voting machines in minority neighborhoods, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Different day, same old sunrise.