Sunday Read -- Messing With Texas Edition

Stephen Stromberg in the once great Washington Post Kaplan Daily on the Attorney General's decision to enforce what's left of the Voting Rights Act in Texas:

If you believe a handful of Texas Republicans, Attorney General Eric Holder’s new effort to enforce the Voting Rights Act in their state and elsewhere brazenly defies the Supreme Court, which struck down part of the law in June. “This end run around the Supreme Court undermines the will of the people of Texas,” Gov. Rick Perry said.

“The Supreme Court message to the Justice Department was clear — don’t mess with Texas,” Rep. Lamar Smith insisted. “But Eric Holder and the Justice Department aren’t listening.”

It would be amazing if that’s actually what Chief Justice John Roberts and the court majority said. But, in reality, the attorney general’s move to use the Voting Rights Act provisions the Supreme Court left in place is perfectly consonant with the ruling, and not just in a technical sense. It also comports with the court’s logic. Anyone who says otherwise didn’t read it, didn’t understand it, or didn’t let that stop him. Lamar Smith apparently confused the 24-page decision with an asinine bumper sticker.

The recent (Democratic) voter suppression law passed in North Carolina by the Rethuglican state legislature is certain to receive the same treatment, as should every state and jurisdiction that has taken the decision in Shelby County v Holder to mean it can proceed full speed backward in denying the vote to people they don't want to see at the polls.