The other day, I posted a diary about the Supreme Court ruling against the Voting Rights Act - and I noted the next day's email from the White House had nothing to say about it.
It would only be fair to say that since then, a White House email has mentioned the ruling. Of course, first it mentioned Obama's talk about carbon pollution. Then the ruling on DOMA. Then it noted that not everything was rosy - that the Voting Rights ruling wasn't so good. Then it mentioned the immigration bill as a positive thing. They even asked people to send in comments about immigration.
So, what did the White House email say about the Voting Rights ruling?
As the President said, it’s now up to Congress to ensure that every American has equal access to the polls.
Uh. He means the House Republicans who hold a majority there only as a result of their states' gerrymandering, voter intimidation, selective voter roll purges and laws making voter registration more difficult are going to pass a law to negate a Supreme Court ruling that was to their benefit?
Really???
Not only is it clear the White House doesn't treat these various steps limiting the fairness of our elections as serious threats worth fighting against, but its "solution" is to let voting rights die with a whimper. They could have asked those who got the email to do something about the Voting Rights ruling. They asked recipients to make comments about immigration - and provided a link for them to do that. But not to defend the right of the majority to choose their government.
[After various comments from people who object to any criticism of Democrats - some who assume the only explanation for saying a Democrat did the wrong thing is the statement must come from a Republican - I decided to add a bit more to the diary.]
I've been asked what Obama could do about the Voting Rights ruling - since he's not a legislator. The origins of this diary was the fact the day after the Voting Rights ruling I got a White House email that said nothing about the ruling, then a few days later I got another White House email in which the ruling was only a secondary point. So, one thing I know the president can do is send out emails to draw attention to matters important to him.
The email the day after the ruling was focused on promoting action on carbon pollution. The president can build public knowledge or opinion on issues by sending emails, making speeches or otherwise expressing himself. He must believe there is a potential benefit in emails and speeches, as he goes to the time and effort to do them. Essentially, my question was: Why wasn't the Voting Rights ruling worth that time and effort?
As I wrote in the diary after the first White House email after the ruling, the importance of what Obama and the Democrats do is that it's not only the Voting Rights ruling. Our electoral process is being corroded by Citizens United, voter intimidation, selective voter roll purges, laws making voter registration harder, 6-hour long lines to vote, gerrymandering, etc. This army of attacks on fair elections was not getting the attention and action it deserved. The Voting Rights ruling and the lack of even an email focused on it seemed especially significant in that context.