Once again, voting rights are under
attack, and a fatal blow to the already
weakened Voting Rights Act could be underway.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit recently ruled that only the federal
government — and not an individual or
organization — may bring a lawsuit alleging
racial discrimination under Section
2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The appeals court upheld the ruling of
Judge Lee Rudofsky in Arkansas
State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas
Board of Apportionment, a case that alleged racial
gerrymandering in Arkansas. Specifically, the
plaintiffs claimed that the state’s voting
maps were racially gerrymandered because Black
voters are over 16% of the population of
Arkansas, yet the state maps contain only 11%
majority-Black districts. Judge Rudofsky, a Trump appointee, ruled that
only the U.S. attorney general may file a
racial gerrymandering claim, not a private
party.
We have a problem here if Black citizens have to rely on
the federal government to fight for voting
rights in federal court. What if the attorney
general is appointed by a president who is
hostile toward Black voting rights? If people
and civil rights organizations are blocked
from using the Voting Rights Act to protect
themselves from racial discrimination — and
the attorney general does not believe in
voting rights for everyone and refuses to act
— where does that leave the people?
This decision is more proof that even out
of office, Donald Trump continues to hurt
Black voters and other groups who face racial
discrimination at the ballot box. It takes
very little awareness to understand that when
the next Republican president — for example, a
President DeSantis or President Trump, perish
the thought — is in office, Black folks are
out of luck.
The Voting Rights Act was enacted to protect
against Jim Crow schemes to dilute the
voting power of Black people and other
marginalized groups. Section 2 of the VRA is
important because, reflecting the language of
the 15th
Amendment, it bans voting
procedures and practices that discriminate by race, color or
certain language minority groups. This is why
the recent attacks on Section 2 matter.
In 2021, the Supreme Court looked over
what remained of the carcass of the Voting
Rights Act after it was gutted
in 2013’s Shelby
v. Holder decision and, for the first time, upheld
the denial of voting rights under Section 2. In this case, the
court upheld two Arizona laws — one banning
absentee ballot collection by anyone except a
caregiver or relative, and the second throwing
out ballots cast in the wrong precinct. An
appeals court had struck down both laws
because of the impact on voters of color and
the absence of voter fraud invoked to justify
the laws, but the 6-3 conservative Supreme
Court majority upheld the laws. Because that’s
what they do.
The Republican assault on voting rights
is all a numbers game, a matter of basic math.
With their wholly unpopular policies geared
towards a dwindling base of regressive white
voters, the GOP has decided to keep their
atrocious ideas. However, staying in power
requires the MAGA party to ditch democracy and restrict
voting rights.
”Everybody
shouldn’t be voting,” they say, using
red herrings and subterfuges like “voter
fraud” to make their case. Besides, the MAGA
faithful believe the white man is an
endangered species, and they don’t want to
be replaced by melanated people in the voting
booth. Neither did Bull Connor, Ross Barnett,
Geoge Wallace or any number of Jim Crow
segregationists who feared their political
days were numbered if Black people got their
voting rights.
While there is hope, even an expectation
by some because of legal
precedent that the Supreme Court will
overturn this latest decision and uphold
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, we can’t
be so sure, can we? With the Dobbs decision — overturning Roe v. Wade and the right to an abortion after
50 years — as exhibit 1, the Supreme Court has
demonstrated that it will do what it wants to
do and when it wants to do it — legal
precedent be damned. For all of the
conservatives’ talk about originalism and
precedent, the extremist justices of the high
court majority will do mental gymnastics and
risk hypocrisy and inconsistency in service to
white supremacy.
That point remains true even after the
Supreme Court protected Section 2 of the
Voting Rights Act in June. In Allen
v. Milligan, the court upheld
Section 2 and struck down Alabama’s
congressional maps. Voting 5-4, the court
rebuked the state of Alabama and its efforts
to stop the Voting Rights Act from banning
racist gerrymanders who sought to dilute Black
voting power.
That decision, written by Justice John
Roberts, will give Black people another
district in Alabama and could boost Black
voting rights in other states as well. Perhaps
Roberts is playing the long game and throwing
a few bones as a public relations ploy to
salvage his reputation and the legitimacy
of the
corrupt institution he leads. However, lest we are
inclined to call Roberts a hero, it is
important to understand that Roberts is no
friend of civil rights and no friend of Black
people outside of Clarence Thomas.
As Politico
has amply laid out, Justice Roberts has spent his
decades-long legal career attacking the Voting
Rights Act, including Section 2 — from his
clerkship with the racist Justice William
Rehnquist to his time at Reagan’s Justice
Department to his current job on the nation’s
highest court. The man has been at this for a
long time.
After all, Roberts wrote the 2013 opinion
in Shelby
v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act
by neutralizing the preclearance requirement
of Section 5. This enforcement mechanism
required states with a history of Jim
Crow-style tactics and policies against Black
voters — such as voter intimidation, threats
and disenfranchisement — to seek federal
permission before changing their election
laws. It was after this ruling that many
Republican-controlled states began
passing voter
suppression laws that we’re still dealing with
today.
Will the Supreme Court save what’s left of the Voting
Rights Act? Time will tell. But as long as
hostile Republicans are in power and in a
position to gut our rights, the trajectory
always looks bleak.
This commentary is also posted on TheGrio.com.
