Politics What is happening????

What I find hypocritical is that Congress can have a "sequester" to cut benefits for the VA, Education and the poor, yet find the BILLIONS for this witch hunt because the GOP/Tea Partiers are sore losers. They are being like Kasich in Ohio after Issue 5 voted down his civil servants union law. PUNISH the ignorant voters because they did not vote the way YOU wanted them to and for that the voters must pay so they KNOW who their massas are.

What's truly saddening is in my lifetime it seems all congress can do is try to destroy whoever the President may be, doesn't matter what party the president is, Congress seems out to destroy him.

 

It is unfortunate that every recent attempt to enact a federal shield law to protect journalists and their sources, including subpoenas of phone records, have been blocked by Senate Republicans.

Once on the basis of the act being a "stealth law aimed at protecting President Barack Obama from having to produce his "actual" birth certificate...."
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Assholes like Darrell Isa who voted against the shield law are now outraged that journalists are not protected.

More: Republicans In Congress Killed A Media Shield Law That Would Have Protected The Associated Press

 

On an historical note:

Last week was the 50th anniversary of JFK signing the Equal Pay Act to end wage discrimination based on gender and a goal of "equal pay for equal work."

The day that the bill was signed into law, women earned 59 cents for every dollar a man earned on average. Today, it is about 77 cents (less for women of color).



You've come a long way, baby?

Not so much: Paycheck Fairness Act Vote Blocked By House GOP

 

It means that the data that formed the basis for identifying which jurisdictions need preclearance under the Voting Rights Act is out of date. So Congress can reinstitute preclearance requirements, it just has to rely on data more recent than (I think) 1973 as the basis for the conclusion that preclearance is necessary. It's more of a political big deal than a legal big deal, unless you think that the formerly covered jurisdictions are about to start engaging in massive denial of voting rights based on race -- and if that happens, a new federal statute would address it and likely be upheld.

The loud wailing you hear about the decision is because some people attach fetishistic importance to certain kinds of laws, almost like religious totems, so that any alteration of those laws, even to update them, is viewed as some horrible moral transgression.

 

I agree with your summation and that it is a narrow decision that can be corrected through the legislative process.

But I would suggest the wailing is concern that the current Congress, particularly the Republican House, will not reinstate the preclearance requirement.....a requirement that Congress felt was still necessary the last time the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in 2006 with the broadest of bi-partisan support (98-0 Senate, 390-33 House).

 

well, bear in mind that the extension of the VRA in 2006 was by HUGE bipartisan majorities. And also bear in mind that the Section 2 prohibition on devices to perpetuate discrimination in voting is still in place and can be enforced in the courts by anyone who is aggrieved. I think there is less here than meets the eye. A lot of the wailing is emotional, based on VRA symbolism, but it's really not 1965 anymore. If it was any other governmental program that was operating based on 40+ year old facts, the rest of us would be laughing out loud about how ridiculous it was.

Do you really think that without preclearance you'd have massive denial of voting rights? And do you think that the formerly covered jurisdictions are that much worse than the ones that aren't covered? For instance, in NYC, 3 boroughs are covered and two aren't. Are the voting administrators in Queens and Staten Island that much fairer than the ones in Manhattan, Bronx and Brooklyn? Especially given that the Bronx has been sending heavily minority elected officials into office for years now. Brooklyn, too.

 

I think this give a green light to the continued redistricting at the state level that has the effect of adversely impact minorities (see Texas) and I think we'll continue to see voter ID laws that continue to potentially adversely impact minorities without the states having to show that these acts are not discriminatory.
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I still think your so-called "wailing" is more than just emotional.

 

Redux, there is not a single other context I can think of in which 40-year-old data are being used to impose extraordinary intrusions on state autonomy. Or on anything else. It just doesn't happen. The result was a scheme that had no relationship to reality -- there were jurisdictions that were far worse offenders and not covered, and jurisdictions that were covered that had loads of minority officeholders. It all made no sense. If it hadn't been in place already, there is absolutely no way that that coverage scheme could have passed in 2006 if it was first being proposed then. Can you just imagine the laughter if someone proposed in 2006 to use data from 1968 to craft a regulatory scheme? It's ludicrous.

As for the other stuff, you are simply attributing to other people the assumption that you instantly make, that everything govt does is about race. It isn't. It's about politics. Do you think for a second that Texas would be doing anything different if African Americans voted 60-40 for one party or the other rather than almost 100% Dem? I don't. I think they'd be doing exactly the same thing, because the socioeconomic demographics, quite independent of race, make it politically advantageous for Republicans to get a bourgeois electorate (of whatever race). Dems tend to be a top and bottom party, Reps tend to be a middle party (gross, gross generalizations, but more or less accurate).

Much as I don't care for the Republican party, I really detest the Democrats, precisely because they make everything about race. And why? Because keeping the racial pot boiling is good for them politically. It's bad for the country, though (IMHO). It was Obama who said there is no white America and no black America, just a United States of America -- and I wish his party followed that road. I don't think they can because they have too much invested in it. Sadly. I wish Harry Truman would come back. Or Scoop Jackson. Or Jack Kennedy, for that matter.

(BTW, in case you're interested, I don't like the Reps because I have very little patience for social conservatism. I really don't want to be told by ANYONE how to live, not in my bedroom, not in my wallet, not in my socializing. I want to live my life and be left alone without other people bossing me around. If I want to be gay, that's my business. If I want an abortion, it's my business. If I want to hang out on Sunday and drink beer instead of going to church, that's my business. Etc etc etc.)

 

I dont disagree with the Court's ruling on the 40 year old data, the result of which is the effective removal of the most significant enforcement provision of the VRA.

My concern is that the restoration of the enforcement provision that I believe is still needed, perhaps not in all of the states covered (e.g. NY), requires legislation that is highly unlikely in a Republican House.

I believe federal oversight, with more recent data, is still needed to protect voter rights of minorities that have been historically restricted in one way or another.

And that includes voter photo ID laws and the need for the state to demonstrate that the intent is not to adversely impact minority voters but is purely to prevent voter fraud that doesnt exist or that redistricting that just coincidentally breaks up districts that are predominantly minority voters and puts those voters in districts that are predominately White have no intent to lessen the likelihood of a minority being elected.

Yes, it is about race and the Democrats have no need to apologize for that fact.

 

the districting gamesmanship has actually reduced minority voting power, with govt approval under the VRA. Over the last 25 years or so, Republicans actually collaborated with Democrats to pack districts with minorities in order to concentrate them in "safe" districts. Dems got safe districts and Reps figured that the remaining districts would be Republican or competitive. There's actually a fair amount of documentation on this. The congresspeople who got elected under this scheme loved it, for obvious reasons. Me, I think it stinks. Say what you want about Allan West (black Republican from FL), I love that a majority white district sent him to Congress. Same for Steve Cohen (white Democrat from TN) with his majority black district. Why does that have to be viewed as unusual? Isn't that the kind of society we want, where people vote their preferences and not their ethnicity?

You simply asserting that it's about race doesn't make it so. You are just making assumptions by immediately supposing the worst about people who disagree with you. You can't possibly know what they "really" have in their heads, so instead you immediately conclude that if they disagree with you they must have the most venal possible motives. But would you want people on the other side to think that way about you? It's that sort of thinking that is going to keep this country divided. As a general rule, take people at their word. Most people might be mistaken or misguided or misinformed, but not very many of them are evil.

As for federal oversight, I have issues with empowering politicized functionaries to make decisions for other people. The feds aren't neutral observers; they have preferences and political interests just like anyone else does. At the most basic level: someone whose job depends on stamping out racism is going to tend to find lots of racism -- because otherwise he's out of a job. Not that there isn't a fair amount of racism out there, but I sure don't want anyone to have an interest in being sure to perpetuate it, particularly not if they have governmental powers. And that's just the most obvious bad incentive that's out there. There are plenty of second and third order bad effects.

Let's see what happens with judicial enforcement. People whose rights are abridged (or may be abridged) still have the right to sue under the VRA. We prob will get a lot less political claptrap if that's how enforcement is done now. And I'm quite confident that federal courts will recognize and stamp out voter disfranchisement when they see it.

 

I would respectfully suggest that you simply asserting that it is not about race, doesnt make it so, either.

Which is why I think it is necessary to have more recent data and the necessary enforcement provisions if the data suggests that race-based voting discrimination still exists. And that is highly unlikely with the Republican House.

And therre is data that minorities, particularly young minorities, are more adversely impacted by photo voter ID laws (given that they disproportionately dont own cars or even have family cars, thus no drivers license).

And why federal empowerment may still be necessary as opposed to the most disenfranchised among us having to pursue a legal remedy themselves.

And it is not just about race. It is about the role of the government in protecting the civil rights of all of us.

 

One can only hope that more Republicans agree with Sensenbrenner and Chabot.

I'm not optimistic but I will be the first to applaud and give credit where due if it happens.

 

A specious claim, given that the VRA targeted particularly states where past voter discrimination was well documented as opposed to the photo voter ID laws where there is no evidence of past voter fraud.

The more appropriate comparison is pre-VRA and present photo voter ID both potentially disenfranchise a class of voters.