The LuLac Edition #4,551, July 7th, 2021

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

Our “Write On Wednesday” logo.

This week we look at a Times Shamrock Editorial which takes the Supreme Court to task gr their decision that seriously threatens Voting Rights in this country.

COURT IMPERILS VOTING RIGHTS

As the nation last week prepared to celebrate Independence Day, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court observed the birth of modern representative democracy with two decisions that diminish it.

In 6-3 decisions, the court overturned lower court decisions that would have strengthened access to voting and increased transparency regarding campaign financing.

Lower courts had rejected new Arizona voting restrictions that the Republican-majority legislature there had passed in response to Democratic President Joe Biden carrying the state in 2020. The court revived the restrictions, which will enable the politicians who passed them to stay in office not by winning over voters, but by keeping them away from the polls.

The decision accelerates evisceration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2012, the court eliminated Section 5 of the law, which had required voting jurisdictions with records of racial discrimination to get clearance from the Department of Justice for any major revisions in voting laws and regulations. The new ruling severely weakens Section 2, which precludes practices that deny or diminish the right of any citizen to vote.

With the same majority, the court overturned a California law that required nonprofits to disclose to the state attorney general, but not to the public, the identities of their major donors — a rule that was crucial to fighting the cascade of corrosive “dark money” in campaign financing.

The two rulings were contradictory. One upheld “states’ rights” regarding Arizona elections; the other denied California the right to cast light on campaign financing.

These rulings should inform Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona that, as Republican state legislatures attack voting rights, their quest for bipartisanship is futile and they cannot rely on the courts to protect voting.

They must decide whether to protect the filibuster, a mere procedural rule, or representative democracy itself. They should agree to eliminate the filibuster and then join in passing HR 1, the access-easing For the People Act, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which partially would restore the Section 5 provisions stricken earlier by the Supreme Court.