"Like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm"

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Tuesday June 25, 2013 · 9:13 PM PDT

2013/06/25 · 21:13

SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER

GINSBURG, J., dissenting [Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Voting Rights Act decision]

6/25/2013 -- Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, join, dissenting

Instead, the Court strikes [Section]4(b)'s coverage provision because, in its view, the provision is not based on "current conditions." Ante, at 17. It discounts, however, that one such condition was the preclearance remedy in place in the covered jurisdictions, a remedy Congress designed both to catch discrimination before it causes harm, and to guard against return to old ways. [...]
Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

[Source -- www.forfolkssake.com ]

SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER

GINSBURG, J., dissenting [Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg]

Hubris is a fit word for today's demolition of the VRA. [Voting Rights Act]

[Source -- ecolocalizer.com ]

Congress did not take this task lightly. Quite the opposite. The 109th Congress that took responsibility for the renewal started early and conscientiously.
[...]
152 Cong. Rec. H5207 (July 13, 2006); Persily, The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act, 117 Yale L. J. 174, 182-183 (2007) (hereinafter Persily). The bill was read and debated in the Senate, where it passed by a vote of 98 to 0. 152 Cong. Rec. S8012 (July 20, 2006). President Bush signed it a week later, on July 27, 2006, recognizing the need for "further work . . . in the fight against injustice," and calling the reauthorization "an example of our continued commitment to a united America where every person is valued and treated with dignity and respect." 152 Cong. Rec. S8781 (Aug. 3, 2006).

[emphasis added]

But even George W Bush had the good sense NOT to try to dismantle the hard-won protections of the Voting Rights Act, but rather to advocate for "further work" in this regard, in order to "fight against injustice," as Justice Ginsburg noted in the minority dissent.

The good sense obviously lacking from our current "activist" uber-conservative Supreme Court majority.

If ever you needed a good reason to keep on voting for the Democratic Party -- just imagine a Supreme Court with even more justices, cut from the mold of Scalia and Roberts. And Thomas.

And try not to shudder ... at what they would ultimately do, before they were done.
(Hint: They're even more extreme than GWB.)

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