If the right-wing of the U.S. Supreme Court is setting its sights on killing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as it did Section 5, then this country may become a "democracy" only for the "privileged"

 

It should have been predictable when the U.S. Supreme vacated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 that in states that had historically sought to limit voting by minorities in order to maintain white supremacy, there would be a resurgence of laws for that purpose. Before, the “preclearance” threat tended to prevent the passing of laws that were clearly “suspicious” in their intent, but since Section 5 was deemed no longer necessary, a whole raft of such laws were passed by Republican legislatures across the country.  

It was common practice in the pre-civil rights South to claim that a law was not “race-based” if it all races were punished “equally.” For example, although laws prohibiting mixed-race marriages punished both partners, the laws were clearly race-based and discriminatory, and were clearly intended to “protect” the “purity” of the white race, just as Nazi race laws prohibited the “mixture” of pure Arian “blood” with that of Jews.

But now Section 2 of the voting rights act is under threat. The act had been amended during the Reagan administration from merely focusing on whether the “intent” of a law was to disenfranchise minority voters, but to take into consideration whether the “result” of such a law had a disproportionate effect on minority voters. This section has been ignored for years and years in Republican-controlled states, but after the loss of Georgia and Arizona in the 2020 election both in the White House and the U.S. Senate, Republican state legislators are now becoming more bold in their efforts to craft laws that are deliberately designed to disenfranchise as many likely Democratic voters as possible, and minorities in particular.

Chief Justice John Roberts himself wrote the opinion gutting Section 5, and he opposed the change to Section 2 when he was a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, and there is every reason that Republicans should be confident that a 6-3 right-wing majority in the Supreme Court will see things their way on purely partisan political grounds.  The DNC is currently a plaintiff in a case before the court against the Arizona laws which prohibits out-of-precinct voting and limits those allowed to handle completed ballots, banning third-parties from collecting ballots; this particularly harms those like Native Americans who have no “traditional” mailing addresses, and underserved urban communities where polling stations are deliberately few and far between.

In order to “take back” Georgia, the Republicans in control have passed new election laws so egregious that if Section 5 was still in effect, they would not even have been contemplated. In particular, the use of mail-in ballots has been heavily restricted in an apparent effort to void their use altogether. Voters now have to provide a photo ID with their mail-in ballots, the time to request a ballot is restricted, and the number of drop boxes reduced and times they are available for use shortened. Further, the law seeks to allow the Republican-controlled legislature to interfere with the work of state election officials administering the voting process.

These new laws are not meant to make the voting process more “transparent” and “trustworthy”; these are clearly meant to insure “single-party” control as defined by Donald Trump and the increasingly radicalized Republican Party, by seeking bit by bit ways to disenfranchise as many voters as possible, and if the Supreme Court allows them to get away with this, they will certainly feel uninhibited to see how far they can go before even the right-wingers on the Court are loath to test their place in the history books if they choose to cross the Dred Scot line.

It would seem blindly hypocritical for the right-wing of the Supreme Court not to see that race is clearly the motivating factor behind the actions of Republicans—both in intent and results, violating all aspects of Section 2. Did we not see that clearly in evidence after the 2020 election when it was predominantly black districts in Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia that were under attack by Trump and his familiars? Laws such as those passed in Arizona and Georgia are clearly aimed at communities such as those. 

Also let us not forget what happened in Florida, after voters passed Amendment 4, which removed the article in the state constitution that banned felons permanently from voting, even after they served their time; Gov. Ron DeSantis promptly imposed arbitrary fines and court costs on released felons, preventing the vast majority from legally voting until they paid what were essentially “poll taxes.”

The resulting efforts to deprive the right of millions of American citizens to vote after the elimination of Section 5 is plain enough to see, but efforts to undermine Section 2 are even more insidious and sinister, and what remains to be seen is if the Supreme Court “guts” that law as well. When that happens, this country will only be a “democracy” for the privileged.