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Via Charles P. Pierce at Esquire, “State tries to force challenge of U.S. voting law“:
Attorney General Greg Abbott on Wednesday made a direct constitutional challenge to a piece of the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965, which singles out Texas and several other states.
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Abbott took aim at a section of the act that requires Texas and several other states, mostly in the South, that have histories of discrimination to “pre-clear” any changes to election laws. Abbott seems to be using the U.S Department of Justice’s recent denial of pre-clearance of the Legislature’s controversial voter ID law, which would require voters to present a valid form of photo identification before casting ballots, as a way to try to change the larger decades-old requirement…
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In the filing to a three-judge panel in Washington, the state asked to submit a petition charging that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act “exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress and conflicts with Article IV of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment.”…
Mr. Pierce goes there:
… The truly nervous-making part of the whole thing is that line at the end of the news story in which we are told that both Chief John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas have “raised concerns” about the pre-clearance provisions “needs.” Which, one supposes, are based on the argument that, because the nation has triumphed over racism and even elected a black guy president, the pre-clearance provisions of the VRA are now obsolete. If the Supreme Court has a couple more justices with these concerns, the whole structure of what was achieved at great cost in the 1960’s could be sticks and splinters in a very short time.
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The obvious rejoinder to all this is the staggering welter of voter-suppression laws that has erupted in the various states in the aftermath — and, I would argue, as a result — of the country’s having elected a black guy as president…
I know there are not-insane Texans here — does AG Abbott actually stand a chance of pushing this rock uphill, or is it just election-year kabuki to keep the Tenther rubes distracted?
Warren Terra
The responses of the not-insane Texans might be interesting context, but it’s my understanding this is a done deal. It’s his job to decide whether and how to appeal the decision of the Justice Department, and he’s done so. It’s now up to the courts, including those founts of sagacity Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas.
PS The banner ad on the side right now is for anti-Obama T-shirts. Someone really needs to hone their Google Adsense terms a bit better.
TheOtherWA
This is the state that redistricted TWICE off the 2000 census. Of course they’re really trying to do this. Minorities are becoming majorities and they must be prevented from voting.
They see the future and are desperately trying to stop it.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
It’s a full court press with all sorts of cookie cutter federalist legislation in red states, as we talked about in Zander’s thread earlier today. It is part of some kind of desperate attempt to move the Overton Window rightward with a flurry of 10th amendment type actions at the state level, I think with the ultimate goal of softening up the battlefield for hopefully (for them) the SCOTUS to do some outrageous shit on settled law with current VRA cases moving toward the high court. You can see this with all sorts assaults on progressive policies either in public law, or previous SCOTUS law making. They don’t want to be with us if we are going to be having colored presidents and the like, and are hoping to build legal moats around certain red states, to keep us plundering fornicating aborting commie collectivist humanist rabbles, out of sight and mind. That’s just my opinion, same old hot air stuck bilge. Grain of salt, and all that.
RareSanity
I don’t know why people are not taking seriously that, whether imagined or not, wingers think that this is their last chance to destroy as much related to the New Deal, and Civil Rights Act, and organized labor as possible.
The GOP primary has them in a feeding frenzy of hopelessness…
They figure that there is nothing to lose with all of this stuff. If they get it through, it’s there for the foreseeable future. As far the fallout, they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it. If they fail, well, they were screwed anyway, so it was worth a shot.
Highly motivated people, with a sense of having nothing to lose, are extremely dangerous, in any situation.
Omnes Omnibus
@RareSanity: Who says people aren’t taking it seriously?It is one of the reason that some of us are willing to overlook a lot of flaws on the part of a wide variety of Democratic candidates and why many prefer to keep the discussions focused on things other than those Democratic flaws.
RareSanity
@Omnes Omnibus:
Can’t we do both?
(ducks)
The prophet Nostradumbass
Why is Don Cherry manning the entrance to that polling place?
Buggy Ding Dong
Yes, and he is going to be the next governor of this shit stain of a state. Will you people just air lift us Austinites out?
Seriously, he is pushing forward with this, it will get rejected 2-1 or even 3-0 by the DC court, and then it goes straight to the Supremes, possibly even by November.
George Wallace would be very proud. He, too, was in a wheelchair and evil.
Schlemizel
Clear out! Remove OUR military, ship OUR Johnson Space Center to that other shit hole, Florida, close the boarders at LA, OK and MN and let the floating turd sink under its own stink. If anyone wants to emigrate from there to the actual US make them pass the standard citizenship test.
The Other Chuck
I think every state should have to pre-clear their election laws, at least as they affect federal elections. This is election to the federal government, which affects everyone, and I’ll be damned if these shitkicker states have their votes treated equally if the votes of their citizens aren’t.
In fact, screw all that. Federal elections should be federal law. If it takes a separate Federal Election Day to make that happen, so be it. This per-state business is bullshit.
dollared
John, the whole point of putting Roberts and Alito in power was to win the Big One – Secession via the Tenth Amendment. It will happen. The next decade will be spent trying to pass a Constitutional Amendment to reinstate the commerce clause. But by then, indentured servitude and sharecropping will be legal in 12 states…..
Mino
If they are pushing this, you can bet they have the fifth Supreme.
feebog
Yes, it’s a full court press, and the five conservatives on the Supreme Court have already given the nod and wink in the Indiana Voter ID decision. This is the way they stay in power, at least at the state level, for the next 20 years.
PTirebiter
Abbot is confined to a wheelchair. He was an obscure, moderately successful attorney in private practice until one day, while out jogging in his neighborhood, a tree branch fell on him. He sued the homeowner (neighbor) for negligence and received a ten million dollar settlement.
The accident seemed a lot more Act of God than negligence but…
He pretty much ran on the single issue of tort reform. IOKIYAR. He’ll get zero resistance and plenty of support.
MobiusKlein
So why are the supremes weighing in on the “needs” of the legislation. Congress pass the bill, the President signed it, and it’s been found constitutional before. when they talk needs, it seems like legislating from the bench.
Which they claim to hate.
El Cid
You ACORN thugs have no respect for any of our traditional American Confederate values.
max
I know there are not-insane Texans here
Are there any non-insane Texans? I thought that was part of the charm, speaking as a Texan. (Bill Mauldin WWII cartoon punchline: ‘You Irish woulda lost this war without allies like Texas and Russia.’ And also: ‘Keep Austin Weird’.)
There are, of course, non-Baptist, non-Confederate, non-evil Texans.
—does AG Abbott actually stand a chance of pushing this rock uphill, or is it just election-year kabuki to keep the Tenther rubes distracted?
The usual suspects (in Texas) have been grumping about the VRA and specifically the pre-clearance bits for as long as I can remember reading about politics (so that would be since sometime in the Carter administration). So they’re pretty dedicated to this thing about the VRA being evil and unfair.
They’re right that it’s unfair. It is, as the Other Chuck says, unfair that the other states (particularly the other Confederate ones) get to get away with crap that pre-clearance prevents in the Seven Sisters.
At any rate, at worst, Scalia will get to finish the tombstone he’s been carving for himself since Bush v. Gore, and the blowback will be awesome, or more likely, Anthony Kennedy will decide that he doesn’t want to be the Roger Taney of the 21st century, or Texas will wind up even further down than when they started. (They’ve already bobbled this repeatedly, what with insisting on their constitutional right to screw the Mexicans.)
Because of the timing and the inability for this to pay off in time to save Mitt’s bacon, this is own goal territory for them.
max
[‘We’re gonna need that Univision dude shortly.’]
rumpole
@RareSanity: I’m spooked. If this is struck down, the political fallout will be enormous. The court will have suffered as much damage as it endured during Bush v gore and citizens U. If I had to guess, the conservatives will try to gut the statute without actually striking it down. So let’s hope that the states raise a facial attack (e.g., this statute never works), and not one in application (e.g., this statute doesn’t work on these facts). The latter could do just as much long-term damage, and permits them to hide behind a veil of “judicial restraint.”
rikyrah
personally, I’m glad, because I’m tired of dancing around shyt with these muthafuckas. this is what they are about, plain and simple, and I want it all out, front and open.
Todd Dugdale
This is an existential crisis for the TX GOP, and for the national Party as well.
TX, with its 34 electoral votes, is the crown jewel of the Republican Party. Without those 34 EV, no Republican is ever going to be elected to the White House.
The last polling I saw (from PPP) showed Obama only 7 points behind in TX. Okay, that’s still a solid “red” State, but it’s been closing far too quickly for Republicans. By 2016, it could be a swing State. The GOP can’t allow that to happen, of course. The only way to prevent that (other than changing their ideology) is to prevent Democrats from voting. That could buy them another decade, as the 1950’s-era mindset dies off.
Barry
@rumpole: “If this is struck down, the political fallout will be enormous. The court will have suffered as much damage as it endured during Bush v gore and citizens U. ”
The court suffered zero damage; the people who did it did not suffer, they got Roberts and Alito, and continued on.
Pococurante
I’m Texan, am pretty liberal, and think preclearance for a handful of states is no longer relevant and is prejudicial.
Eliminating it will actually backfire on the GOP teatards.
Think about it – the more they overreach the more they drive citizens to other parties. Time is not on their side.
Pococurante
@Todd Dugdale:
That has been, exactly, their only strategy the last decade, gerrymandering.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Pococurante:
There’s no other reason to split Austin into 5 different congressional districts.
Once upon a time these people had shame, but that’s long gone.