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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / “I didn’t want to be right, but sadly I am.”

“I didn’t want to be right, but sadly I am.”

by Kay|  July 26, 20139:03 pm| 59 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Assholes

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Voter_suppression_prayer

Democratic members of the N.C. House of Representatives joined hands and bowed their heads in an emotional show of unity as votes on HB 589 were counted in a late-night session on July 25.

The House vote was 73-41, along party lines, and the Senate vote was 33-14, also along party lines.

North Carolina became the first state to pass a more restrictive voting law following the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a core provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
North Carolina — because of past evidence of discrimination against African Americans — was among the states previously required by Section 5 of the federal law to get U.S. approval before voting changes took effect statewide

“The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn’t make any sense to me,” Ginsburg said in a wide-ranging interview late Wednesday in her office at the court. “And one really could have predicted what was going to happen.”
Just a month removed from the decision, she said, “I didn’t want to be right, but sadly I am.”

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Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    July 26, 2013 at 9:09 pm

    “Our country has changed.”

  2. 2.

    PsiFighter37

    July 26, 2013 at 9:10 pm

    Do people better informed than myself think the Democrats have a prayer of retaking any of the state legislative bodies in 2 years? What’s going on in NC has to be even more regressive than what WI, MI, and OH have been put through…

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    July 26, 2013 at 9:11 pm

    This breaks my heart. Tomorrow I’ll get mad. Tonight I’m just sad.

  4. 4.

    Violet

    July 26, 2013 at 9:11 pm

    How angry are the average voters about this? Not activist Democrats, but your average voters? Is the word getting out? Do they know the Republicans want to take away their right to vote?

  5. 5.

    PsiFighter37

    July 26, 2013 at 9:13 pm

    @Violet: But didn’t the Constitution say only white men who owned property had the right to vote? /teabagger

  6. 6.

    IowaOldLady

    July 26, 2013 at 9:20 pm

    I know two academics who live in NC. They’re liberal but not politically active. One of them went to Moral Monday a couple of weeks ago. The other has been on line mourning that Iowa actually looks liberal compared to where she now lives.

  7. 7.

    Neech

    July 26, 2013 at 9:21 pm

    @Violet: I think the average voter is pretty well informed about what’s going on. Moral Mondays have helped and there’s been a good amount of favorable coverage about the protests in the major newspapers (News & Observer, Charlotte Observer) and on television.

    One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of my friends who were previously apathetic are starting to get involved by attending the Moral Monday protests, writing to newspapers, and signing up to assist with voter registration efforts.

  8. 8.

    Violet

    July 26, 2013 at 9:27 pm

    @PsiFighter37: It certainly did. And as Rush Limbaugh says, the country started going to hell when women got the right to vote.

    @Neech: Thanks for the local info. That’s the kind of thing I was wondering about. I’m hoping in the African American communities there’s sort of a “don’t get mad, get even” mentality so they are getting all the documentation needed for everyone, maybe starting a “birth certificate and ID fund” so lower income folks can get the things they need to be able to vote, and that people the Republicans don’t want to vote will turn out in droves and wait for however long it takes.

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    July 26, 2013 at 9:30 pm

    Welcome to North Mississippi.

  10. 10.

    rikyrah

    July 26, 2013 at 9:32 pm

    their racism oozes from every pore.

    but, nobody is playing with them.

    thanks for the update, Kay.

  11. 11.

    max

    July 26, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    @PsiFighter37: Do people better informed than myself think the Democrats have a prayer of retaking any of the state legislative bodies in 2 years? What’s going on in NC has to be even more regressive than what WI, MI, and OH have been put through…

    It’s a state by state thing. I doubt D’s are going to get much traction any decade soon in NC, TN, AL, MS, LA, GA, AR or OK. TX is a special case, as is Florida. They’re driving to uh, ‘reinvent’ (re-envision?) Jim Crow, so this stuff won’t stop there for awhile.

    The key to the mess is actually Congress, which can do stuff about this, provided D’s have traction. (I hear the argument for retaking the statehouses, but that only works in the South if you want to be the Party of the South. Which I am pretty sure we do not, given what that would require – suicide, basically.) North of the ex-slave states the going is easier.

    max
    [‘Don’t give up though, because it’s not 1963 anymore.’]

  12. 12.

    burnspbesq

    July 26, 2013 at 9:38 pm

    DOJ will file within 72 hours after the governor signs the bill. Their complaint will include a cause of action under Section 2, and the prayer for relief will include a request that the court put North Carolina back under pre-clearance for a minimum of 10 years.

    DOJ will win in the District Court, and the Fourth Circuit will affirm. Even if the Supreme Court reverses the Fourth Circuit, it won’t happen until after the 2014 election.

    More importantly, DOJ will show probable success on the merits, and will get a TRO the day it files and a preliminary injunction within two weeks.

    The 2014 election will not be conducted under these rules.

    Make these fuckers pay with their seats for this abomination.

  13. 13.

    Chris

    July 26, 2013 at 9:42 pm

    @Violet:

    I suspect the “they’re trying to destroy your right to vote!” argument is somewhat diluted by the wingnut-spawned myth of rampant voter fraud, which forces them to pass laws like this (they’re not destroying your right to vote, they’re safeguarding it!) or by the argument that the Voting Rights Act was unfair in the way it targeted certain states and not others, or the other memes that are out there – it’s not just wingnuts who swallow that shit hook, line and sinker.

  14. 14.

    J.D. Rhoades

    July 26, 2013 at 9:44 pm

    Make these fuckers pay with their seats for this abomination.

    Amen, brother. Voter registration and help for Dem voters in getting ID’s needs to start tomorrow.

  15. 15.

    J.D. Rhoades

    July 26, 2013 at 9:47 pm

    @Chris:

    The thing that angered me the most is the asshole legislator I heard on the radio this AM who was saying “this will restore faith in elections.” O RLY? No one had LOST faith in elections, you brain dead, bloated tub of guts.

  16. 16.

    Kay

    July 26, 2013 at 9:50 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Will be quite the battle:

    In the last hours of session Friday morning, state lawmakers voted to give legislative leaders equal standing with the Attorney General to intervene in constitutional challenges to state laws.
    The provision, hastily attached to a health care transparency bill in House Rules committee late Thursday night, says:
    “The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, as agents of the State, shall jointly have standing to intervene on behalf of the General Assembly as a party in any judicial proceeding challenging a North Carolina statute or provision of the North Carolina Constitution.”
    That prompted Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, to ask whether Stam was seeking to take away the authority of the Attorney General, which is a constitutional office.
    “No,” Stam replied, saying the Attorney General would retain all his current powers. “Intervention is an additional party.”
    Stam said the intervention would be at the court’s discretion, subject to Rule 24 of the Federal Rules Civil Procedure, which allows intervention.
    When the constitutionality of a state law is challenged, it is the Attorney General’s role to defend the state law. But Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has been critical of some legislation passed this session, particularly the abortion restriction bill.
    The change appears to set up a scenario in which Republican legislative leaders could take a position contrary to the Attorney General in a court case on that law or any other.

  17. 17.

    Ruckus

    July 26, 2013 at 9:53 pm

    From the picture I see black people and 2 white women but no white men. All the white men in NC politics are conservatives? Making all or almost all the white men in NC politics racists?

  18. 18.

    GRANDPA john

    July 26, 2013 at 9:53 pm

    Looks like they are trying to outwingnut us here in SC . They have always been jealous of our wing nuttery

  19. 19.

    Yatsuno

    July 26, 2013 at 9:55 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Today we mourn. Tomorrow we organise.

  20. 20.

    GRANDPA john

    July 26, 2013 at 9:55 pm

    @J.D. Rhoades: he was referring to white people

  21. 21.

    SatanicPanic

    July 26, 2013 at 9:57 pm

    @PsiFighter37: This is why we need a strong, aggressive federal government.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    July 26, 2013 at 10:01 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    NC Attorney General Roy Cooper warned the governor not to sign the voter-suppression bill

    But he’s not the boss of them! Onward!

  23. 23.

    burnspbesq

    July 26, 2013 at 10:03 pm

    @Kay:

    Will be quite the battle circus.

    Although if the AG actually defends the statute, I’m not sure Windsor would foreclose an argument that the legislators don’t have standing. That would be a factual difference on which you could hang an argument that the cases are distinguishable.

  24. 24.

    gbear

    July 26, 2013 at 10:03 pm

    @IowaOldLady: Iowa actually IS liberal compared to where she now lives. Even with Steve King.

  25. 25.

    mai naem

    July 26, 2013 at 10:05 pm

    @PsiFighter37: I hate to sound like a firebagger but this is partly Obama’s fault for not doing some party building. It’s not just his fault but Ed Gillespie and his bunch spent less than $50 million to take over a bunch of state legislatures in time for redistricting. Obama grabbed Sebelius and Napolitano for his cabinet when they may have been better off party building in their states. Clinton wasn’t any better about this. Spend some money in the purple states especially to keep them in Dem hands.

  26. 26.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    July 26, 2013 at 10:05 pm

    @Kay: Quite the battle indeed. Many of my friends asked why I ran screaming from Raleigh (took a farm job there) first chance I got. They laughed at me when I told the NC was ~15 years away from where it is now. I was wrong on the long end – that was just 9 years ago.

  27. 27.

    burnspbesq

    July 26, 2013 at 10:05 pm

    @Kay:

    Facts to the left of them,
    Statutes to the right of them,
    Constitution in front of them,
    Volleyed and thundered.
    Into the Valley of Sanctions
    rode the six hundred.

  28. 28.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    July 26, 2013 at 10:07 pm

    @Kay:

    So they’re basically ensuring nigh-tyrannical unbreakable control of the state for the near future at this point.

  29. 29.

    Chris

    July 26, 2013 at 10:11 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Word.

    Living in America’s made me almost fanatically in favor of strong central government.

  30. 30.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    July 26, 2013 at 10:14 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Oh, yes. This. My sisters and their families live there – could have chosen anywhere to live, and after visiting all over the country, decided this was the place. They are so very sad now.

  31. 31.

    The Fat Kate Middleton

    July 26, 2013 at 10:16 pm

    @IowaOldLady: I wonder where you live in Iowa? The east part of Iowa is a different world than the western part of the state. I, thank FSM, live in the eastern part.

  32. 32.

    Roger Moore

    July 26, 2013 at 10:35 pm

    @Violet:

    And as Rush Limbaugh says, the country started going to hell when women got the right to vote.

    Only because he’s too afraid of the forces of political correctness to say out loud that it was when niggers African Americans got the right to vote.

    In a more serious vein, the Constitution as drafted actually didn’t say anything about who could vote. It left it up to the states with a vague clause saying the federal government was supposed to guarantee each state a republican form of government. Most states had some kinds of restrictions, but different states allowed non-property owners, African Americans, and women to vote. Today, of course, there are more voting right amendments to the Constitution than any other kind of amendment except ones covering criminal law.

  33. 33.

    fuckwit

    July 26, 2013 at 10:35 pm

    @burnspbesq: Thank you for a clear, well-informed, concise, and factual description of what this means and what actions can and will be taken.

  34. 34.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    July 26, 2013 at 10:37 pm

    @J.D. Rhoades: You didn’t hear the last part of the sentence which went “to elect only white people.”

  35. 35.

    Roger Moore

    July 26, 2013 at 10:38 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Make these fuckers pay with their seats for this abomination.

    And if you do it right, you can moot the lawsuit by electing enough people who care about voting rights to repeal this abomination and pass something that protects voting rights. That should be the key goal. Protect voting rights, and future elections will be much easier to win.

  36. 36.

    Violet

    July 26, 2013 at 10:50 pm

    @Roger Moore: No, this was several years ago and the conversation in question was about women. He meant women at that point. I’m sure he also means everyone else but white men in general most of the time, but he was talking about women specifically at that time.

  37. 37.

    Redshirt

    July 26, 2013 at 10:57 pm

    Maine went full Wingnut in 2010. Dems took back control of both state houses first chance we got in 2012, and the Governor will be gone next year, 3rd party candidate not withstanding. So it can be done, quickly, but Maine is not North Carolina. Wisconsin, on the other hand – WTF, Wisconsin?

  38. 38.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 26, 2013 at 11:05 pm

    @Redshirt: Actually, I think Wisconsin would have been better served if the efforts put into the recall had been spent on 2012 instead.

  39. 39.

    burnspbesq

    July 26, 2013 at 11:07 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    And if you do it right, you can moot the lawsuit by electing enough people who care about voting rights to repeal this abomination and pass something that protects voting rights. That should be the key goal. Protect voting rights, and future elections will be much easier to win.

    Yup. Gotta play both sides of the ball. You play defense in the courts and offense at the ballot box.

  40. 40.

    Lavocat

    July 26, 2013 at 11:12 pm

    I welcome the inevitable chaos to come for 3 very important reasons:

    1. The Republican Party is now on suicide watch (so let’s hand them a very sharp knife!);

    2. This will be like nitrous in the collective Progressive gas tank; and

    3. The gauntlet has now been thrown down for Millennials to fight Round 2 of the Civil Rights Revolution, et al.

    This is the Republican Party with terminal cancer and a bomb strapped to its chest.

    Wherever you see attacks on women and reproductive rights, wherever you see attacks on immigrants, wherever you see attacks on LBGTQs, wherever you see attacks on same-sex marriage, wherever you see attacks on “Obamacare”, wherever you see attacks on students, wherever you see attacks on the voting franchise, what you are really seeing is the death throes of the Old, White, Male, Straight, Conservative Entitlement Class that has governed this country for far too fucking long.

    Time most definitely is NOT on their side. Tom Joad told us that, sooner or later, this was gonna happen.

    I, for one, welcome the Republican Party’s collective suicide and hope to be a part of making it become a reality.

    I want my grandchildren to ask me “Grampa, who were the Republicans?”

    “Dinosaurs, kid, just another extinct species of dinosaur.”

  41. 41.

    rda909

    July 26, 2013 at 11:17 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Didn’t their recall elections result in taking back either the assembly or senate? That alone made it worth it for the state to be able to stop some of the Republican insanity. Big success in my book. Now on to the next elections!

  42. 42.

    rda909

    July 26, 2013 at 11:18 pm

    @Lavocat: Perfect! Agree completely!

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    July 26, 2013 at 11:20 pm

    @rda909: A short term switch in the senate.

  44. 44.

    Roger Moore

    July 26, 2013 at 11:23 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    You play defense in the courts and offense at the ballot box.

    And too often we’re really playing defense at the ballot box, too. We shouldn’t just be trying to undo the Republicans’ voting restrictions. We should be doing our best to make voting as easy as possible, so that occasional voters become regular voters. It’s not just politically valuable, it’s the right thing to do.

  45. 45.

    Violet

    July 26, 2013 at 11:35 pm

    Related and a question: What’s the status of the immigration bill in the House?

  46. 46.

    Redshirt

    July 26, 2013 at 11:42 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: I weep for Wisconsin. Actually, I feel awful for all of us. To be dragged down by a small MINORITY of troglodytes is depressing. We’re regressing, and have been for a while now (thanks W!), despite progress in some areas. Fer Christ’s Sakes – we’re fighting on multiple fronts for Science! Science! Who besides the crazed can want to attack Science?

  47. 47.

    ? Martin

    July 26, 2013 at 11:49 pm

    @Violet: Neither dead nor alive. There’s some serious infighting in the GOP right now. If the GOP is unified, the immigration bill is dead. They’re far from unified. The bill may just resurrect itself out of that effort if there’s a group of House Republicans that feel they can gain power by advancing it.

  48. 48.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    July 27, 2013 at 12:02 am

    @? Martin: I have a feeling that the August recess will not be kind to the immigration bill.

  49. 49.

    Violet

    July 27, 2013 at 12:06 am

    @? Martin: @BillinGlendaleCA: The immigration bill is a giant albatross for the Republicans. No matter what they do they’re screwed. Don’t bring it up for a vote–they’re the ones who Killed The Bill. Way to get those Latino voters, GOP. Bring it up and it fails? Lather, rinse, repeat. Bring it up and it passes? Way to piss off the GOP base. There just isn’t an upside for them with it–outside of changing who they are, of course.

  50. 50.

    ? Martin

    July 27, 2013 at 12:14 am

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I think it could go either way. Steve King has done a lot to revive it by being such a supremely racist dickhead. If August goes like Aug 2009, we’ll likely see immigration pass, simply because the GOP base is going to get so ugly on the subject that Boehner will be forced to put it up for a vote just to get out from under the branding. If August is quiet about immigration, then I think the bill dies. I think it works out the opposite that people expect. The last thing Boehner want is for anyone to even say the word.

  51. 51.

    wasabi gasp

    July 27, 2013 at 12:23 am

    Whitesnake – Here I Go Again

  52. 52.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    July 27, 2013 at 12:53 am

    @? Martin: Just remember the town halls during the August 2009 recess, wrt healthcare. The people that hate immigration are well organized.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    July 27, 2013 at 1:05 am

    @Violet:
    I think their only halfway realistic hope is to kill the bill and try to plant the Democrats’ fingerprints on the murder weapon. I doubt it will work, but it’s the only way they can please their base without pissing off immigrants any more than they already have.

  54. 54.

    Redshirt

    July 27, 2013 at 2:27 am

    That these folks can be so out there in support of evil yet get mainstream, normal treatment…

    Madness.

  55. 55.

    Svensker

    July 27, 2013 at 8:21 am

    @IowaOldLady:

    We have friends who moved to NC a few years ago with their grad school son, all liberals but not very active politically. They’ve all decided to get involved — the vote thing was what really got them motivated.

  56. 56.

    IowaOldLady

    July 27, 2013 at 10:42 am

    @The Fat Kate Middleton: I live in Waterloo, Kate.

  57. 57.

    GRANDPA john

    July 27, 2013 at 11:07 am

    Things that voters never seem to learn;
    Elections have consequences

  58. 58.

    gene108

    July 27, 2013 at 11:26 am

    @mai naem:

    NC had a very strong state Democratic Party, until 2010.

    Gov. Easley, who coasted to election and re-election in 2000 and 2004 got hit with a bunch of scandals at the end of his second term.

    The Democrats did lousy damage control and became thought of as a party of corrupt self serving good old boys. A lot of people voted Republican to “send a message”.

    I do not know what stats Democrsts need to do to rebuild trust, but they are not doing it.

    NC’s problem had nothing to do with a lack of coalition building, but the perfect storm in 2010 of an electorate upset at the Democratic gold boy network, a terrible economy which leads to a “throw the bums out” mindset and the influx of post CU money.

    I’m not sure what the national Dem party can do to help the local Dem party recover from their self inflicted wounds though.

  59. 59.

    Geeno

    July 28, 2013 at 5:41 am

    Remember the 50 state strategy? What ever happened to that?
    Oh yeah, we won in 2008 and decided we didn’t need it anymore.

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