Voting rights and wrongs: Court makes correct decision on VRA

On June 25, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Shelby County Alabama v. Holder, the Voting Rights Act case. That evening Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly News anchor, opened the broadcast by saying, "as one reporter put it, the U.S. Supreme Court has driven a stake through the heart of the most important civil rights law ever enacted, the Voting Rights Act."

In a single sentence, while hiding behind an anonymous reporter, Williams disgraced himself, the profession of journalism and distorted the truth! Not bad for a guy who makes $10 million a year!

The VRA was signed into law in 1965. The Senate and House had passed it with huge bipartisan majorities, including well more than 80 percent of the Republicans and both of their leaders, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and House Minority Leader Gerald Ford. It has done an immense amount of good over the past half century. It has basically eradicated voting discrimination, especially in the South, where racial discrimination had been rampant.

The centerpiece of the law is found in two different, but related sections, Sections 2 and 5. Section 2 is permanent and covers the entire nation. It is designed to require enforcement of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The 14th guarantees equal protection and due process, and the 15th prohibits abridging the right to vote based on race. Section 2 contains a general prohibition on voting discrimination that is enforced by Federal District Courts. What changes did the High Court's ruling in Shelby make in Section 2? None.

Section 5 has to be periodically reauthorized. It is currently authorized through 2031. Under jurisdictions covered by Section 5, no changes in voting procedures are permitted without preclearance by the United States Department of Justice. Section 5 covers nine states in the South, and counties in several other states, including North Carolina. The provisions of Section 5 trample on the constitutional doctrine of federalism and the sovereignty of the states. But, given the severity of voter discrimination in those states in 1965, it was a price that had to be paid. The United States Civil Rights Commission has now found that the number of Justice Department objections to proposed changes has become trivially small, less than 0.1 percent. What changes did the high court's ruling in Shelby make to Section 5? None

Section 4 of the VRA contains a formula by which covered jurisdictions requiring preclearance under Section 5 are determined. That formula has not been modified during the 48-year history of the VRA. Because it is outdated, the high court ruled in Shelby that the formula is unconstitutional. Unless and until Congress and the president write a new formula, Section 5 is inoperable.

It's not as if they were not given advance warning. In a decision in 2009 on a previous VRA case, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, put a clear warning shot across the bow of the president and the Congress when he stated, "the evil that Section 5 is meant to address may no longer be concentrated in the jurisdictions singled out for preclearance. The statute's coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old, and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions".

But President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and the then-Democratic controlled Congress, including the Congressional Black Caucus, ignored the clear warning and chose not to update the Section 4 formula.

Within 24 hours of the Court's ruling in Shelby, the voices of reverse racism were in full-throated attack. Al Sharpton said, "What they've just done is really revoked a lot of what Dr. King's dream was all about. They just canceled the dream". Jesse Jackson said, "This is the most devastating blow to civil rights since the 1896 decision (Louisiana's grandfather clauses)." And Benjamin Jealous, President of the NAACP, said, "This decision is outrageous."

In fact, what explains their feigned outrage is something else. In Commentary Magazine, Jonathan Tobin illuminates the real issue. He stated, "It must be understood that once the detritus of segregation and other laws intended to prevent blacks from voting were swept away, the main point of the law has been to create a system that enshrined racial gerrymandering as the norm." He called that system a class of political elites that benefit from majority-minority congressional districts.

Writing in the Washington Post on June 26, George Will characterized the VRA as the noblest legislation in American history. He also said, "The court paid the VRA the highest possible tribute by saying the act's key provision is no longer constitutional because the act has changed pertinent facts that once made it so."

Americans have now twice elected a black man president of the United States. A black man is the nation's attorney general. Black people voted in the 2012 election at a higher rate than did white people. Blacks are registered to vote at a higher rate than whites in the nine Southern states covered by the preclearance requirement of Section 5 of the VRA. Mississippi has more elected black officials than any other state in the nation!

The war's over. Decent people of all races have won. The apostles of reverse racism and their enablers in the media are on the losing side of history.

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