Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Supremes

When you stop to think about it, John Roberts was right, in a way.  Times have changed.  Back in the 1960s, southerners wanted to keep blacks from voting because they were black.  Now, they want to keep blacks (and Latinos) from voting because they vote for Democrats.

Given the dismal state of Congress, the chance of it "fixing" Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act anytime soon is very unlikely.  Personally, I think Section 5 should apply to all states and counties, because you don't have to be a racist to take an interest in voter suppression.  Also, considering how clever our programmers are, wouldn't it be possible to develop computer algorithms to create rational (rather than politicized) voting districts in every state?  (Perhaps the criteria could be crowd-sourced.)

As for the Defense of Marriage Act, I was hoping for something better than the usual five-four split, but you take what you can get.  The California marriage case, which turned on the litigant's standing to sue, was more a matter of ducking the issue than a statement about marital rights.  I wonder if the nine of them got together and negotiated which of them would vote on one side or the other?

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