The Supreme Court struck down the Louisiana Voting Rights Act, barring a retrial
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For those of us who grew up during the Civil Rights era, there are bad memories.
There was “Bloody Sunday” in 1965, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, when soldiers brutally attacked black protesters.
The marchers, led by John Lewis, were met with tear gas and whips as they demanded voting rights.
Two days later, Martin Luther King Jr. he led a small march to the bridge, where protesters prayed and turned back to avoid further violence.
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A recent Supreme Court decision strikes down the Voting Rights Act. (Drew Anger/Getty Images)
There was a sit-in at the White House, a demonstration at the Capitol and, that summer, the Watts riots in Los Angeles.
Two years earlier, Alabama’s Bull Connor turned powerful pipes on protesters, including children, strong enough to knock them to the ground and cause injuries.
All of this led to LBJ signing the Voting Rights Act which was passed by Congress, to prevent racial discrimination in voting, with strong support from Republicans and Democrats.
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And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, it’s really dead.
A lot has changed in the last sixty years, I’m the first to admit. We had a black president elected twice. Many large cities have had one or more black mayors. There have been Black governors, dozens of Black members of Congress and a Black vice president.
Now the court says the voting law has become a victim of its own success.
The John Roberts court has the obvious ability to overturn laws that have governed the country for decades. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
In a raw display of intellectual power, all six justices voted to strike down the law, with three liberals strongly opposed.
By the way, newsrooms were almost all White in 1965, leaving the LA Times in the embarrassing position of sending a black salesperson to Watts. Now we have Black anchors, newspaper editors and news section heads, although that has included its own battles over affirmative action.
The John Roberts Court focused on overturning the laws that have governed the country since the depths of the last century. Roe v. It came to mind.
Samuel Alito’s opinion says that it is perfectly fine for states to criminalize to protect the incumbents, or to favor one political party, as long as it does not involve race.
The voting law is violated only if “circumstances present a strong presumption that intentional discrimination occurred.”
In the Louisiana case at hand, the court ruled that the state had violated the Constitution by creating a second black district.
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The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page praised the decision: “The Voting Rights Act was a landmark of American freedom that helped break Jim Crow. But that ironic purpose has been distorted over the years by both parties to justify the use of race to gerrymander.”
In fact, supporters say, the creation of majority-Black districts has put Black lawmakers, many of whom are older, in these safe seats.
This question of intent was an issue back when I was putting together the Justice Department during the Reagan administration. And the high court has been striking down the law ever since.
Samuel Alito’s opinion suggests that racketeering in favor of incumbents or a particular group is permissible, as long as it does not involve race. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The New York Times reports that critics “expect that any realignment would not only endanger incumbent Blacks, some of whom have been in power for decades, but also threaten the rising generation of Southern Black Democrats, who already have few paths to political ascension.”
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The conservative court has leaned more to the right on other issues of race, such as rejecting the college admissions act in 2023 on the grounds that race would not be considered a “distributing factor” for applicants.
Alito says black voters now participate in elections at the same rates as others. Presto, problem solved!
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The SCOTUS ruling on voting rights leaves a gray area by leaving the door open without slamming it shut, meaning challenges will undoubtedly make it back to the judges — without much chance of success.
