The "Broad Assault Against Voting Rights"

Here's some reading regarding yesterday's Republican Supreme Court's decision in the Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee voting rights case.

President Biden's statement:

I am deeply disappointed in today’s decision by the United States Supreme Court that undercuts the Voting Rights Act, and upholds what Justice Kagan called “a significant race-based disparity in voting opportunities.”

In a span of just eight years, the Court has now done severe damage to two of the most important provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – a law that took years of struggle and strife to secure. 

After all we have been through to deliver the promise of this Nation to all Americans, we should be fully enforcing voting rights laws, not weakening them. Yet this decision comes just over a week after Senate Republicans blocked even a debate – even consideration – of the For the People Act that would have protected the right to vote from action by Republican legislators in states across the country. 

While this broad assault against voting rights is sadly not unprecedented, it is taking on new forms. It is no longer just about a fight over who gets to vote and making it easier for eligible voters to vote. It is about who gets to count the vote and whether your vote counts at all.

Our democracy depends on an election system built on integrity and independence. The attack we are seeing today makes clearer than ever that additional laws are needed to safeguard that beating heart of our democracy. We must also shore up our election security to address the threats of election subversion from abroad and at home.

Today’s decision also makes it all the more imperative to continue the fight for the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore and expand voting protections. The Court’s decision, harmful as it is, does not limit Congress’ ability to repair the damage done today: it puts the burden back on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act to its intended strength.

That means forging a coalition of Americans of every background and political party – from advocates, activists, and business executives – to raise the urgency of the moment and demand that our democracy truly reflects the will of the people and that it delivers for the Nation.

That is what Vice President Harris and I will continue to do. 

This is our life’s work and the work of all of us.

Democracy is on the line.

We can do this together.

The Washington Post editorial board:

At times, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has labored to maintain the Supreme Court’s legitimacy against the gale-force pressures of partisan acrimony and social division. When it comes to voting rights, he has pushed in the opposite direction, presiding over the court’s systematic dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, overriding Congress’s clear intentions and gravely injuring U.S. democracy.

The first major blow came in 2013, when the court eviscerated the act’s Section 5, which required states with a history of racial discrimination to preclear changes to voting rules with the Justice Department. The decision left in place a backstop, Section 2, which allows legal challenges to discriminatory election rules after they have been enacted. On Thursday, the Roberts court sharply limited that provision as well.

The court also encouraged states to argue that worries about fraud and voting integrity justify new burdens on the right to vote — though there is little or no evidence that the fraud state leaders claim they are fighting actually occurs. From the nation’s Jim Crow past to its voter-suppression present, states have claimed that they merely want to ensure ballot integrity as they impose voting restrictions that disproportionately burden minority voters. The Supreme Court lent legitimacy to their search for pretext.

E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes on the Brnovich decision, as well as yesterday's awful decision on a dark money case (Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta), calling it "Oligarchy Day" at the Republican Supreme Court:

From the GOP blockade against President Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to the 2020 confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett a little more than a week before Election Day, Republicans have been ruthless in using raw power to tilt court outcomes. Two votes on the court could (and likely would) have shifted the outcomes of Thursday’s decisions the other way.

Conservative justices may not vote as a bloc on every issue, but they have held together firmly when it comes to issues affecting democracy itself. Court enlargement must now be on the agenda of anyone who cares about protecting voting rights and our increasingly fragile system of self-rule.

Also, please take a look at "Don't Be Fooled: This Is Not A Moderate Supreme Court," by Leah Litman and Melissa Murray, who review the latest term of this radical Court.

There is no more important fight than the fight for democracy in the United States.  We have no option but to win it, and to be more ruthless in that pursuit than the Right.