Voting Discrimination, Allowed By Law

by muon

The Supreme Court made some bad rulings this month. Bad for the citizens they will effect, surely, and as a result, bad for the democracy, but also bad in a legal sense. There was nothing judicious, or even logical, about their decisions.

You've probably all heard about the Voting Rights Act ruling by now. Some of you don't know about the 5th amendment decision that, regardless of the fact that you're read Miranda rights upon arrest, your silence can be used against you as evidence of guilt, eliminating the whole concept of "innocent until proven guilty."

Another bad decision involved on-the-job harassment cases. The SCOTUS ruled that these cases are only valid if the harasser is a supervisor. You can be sexually, racially, or religiously harassed by anyone else at your workplace, and if your employer does nothing, your only recourse now is to quit your job.

But let's take a closer look at the VRA decision. The court overturned Section 4 of the Act, which requires states with a history of racial discrimination to go through the Justice Department for approval any time they want to make a change to their voting laws or procedures. The court claimed that the formula used to determine which states to include was obsolete, that America had changed. They more or less claimed that the US no longer has a problem with voter discrimination based on race.

The illogic? Justice Ginsburg said it eloquently in her dissent: "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked, and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes, is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." You don't knock down a levee because you haven't had a flood in ten years. You don't take the locks off your doors because you haven't had a robbery.

Still, maybe this is an opportunity to revise Section 4 so it reflects the America of today. Voter discrimination is no longer limited to race. In the last election, you might have experienced voter discrimination if you were African-American, but you could have easily been discriminated against for being Hispanic, Muslim, poor, illiterate, handicapped, female, or a college student. There were incidents of discrimination against anyone registering voters into the Democratic party, for Pete's sake.

We don't need a formula. We need a comprehensive law covering ALL states. If any state wants to change voting laws and procedures, the change should have to be approved by the Justice Department, after a thorough scrutiny to make sure the change wouldn't disenfranchise even one voter. Some states will come back with, "We aren't children. We don't need a babysitter." Maybe if they'd stop acting like hateful, power-hungry brats, this wouldn't be necessary.