Now that the furor has died and warm feelings have passed because SCOTUS struck down DOMA, let’s rewind and talk about the VRA. In light of the progress made on behalf of gays and lesbians, SCOTUS’ earlier ruling on the VRA is even more heinous and I’m going to try to explain it to you in five parts.
What did SCOTUS even rule on?
What’s the big deal with needing an ID to vote?
Does it matter where people vote?
What’s gerrymandering?
Does this even matter anymore?
I’m not an expert and all of this will be in simplest terms because the law isn’t my wheelhouse. If this were Basketball Wives, I could really dig into the issue. So allow me, as a super-regular person, to explain what happened for other super-regular people to digest.
In my opinion, part of the reason less people paid attention to the VRA was the fact that nobody really knows what it is. Gay marriage is easily understood by a lot of people so the joy over DOMA’s demise far outpaced the outrage over the VRA. That’s why I feel this information is necessary so we can all break it down together.
What did SCOTUS even rule on?
The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Between Reconstruction immediately following the Civil War and the VRA of 1965, blacks in most of the country were unable to vote due to a series of roadblocks specifically set up to target them. Poor whites in many locales also felt the consequences of those barriers, but the focus was to keep blacks from voting. If blacks couldn’t vote, they couldn’t elect people to take up their cause and would by default remain on the lower rungs of society.
SCOTUS ruled on the part of the VRA related to states that have to apply for pre-clearance before enacting voter legislation. Southern states with a history of racial prejudice are allowed to make changes to their voting regulations but only if they receive the OK from the Department of Justice. If Justice says, “No, Mississippi, you’re only making these changes so less black people can vote,” then Mississippi doesn’t get to enact those changes.
SCOTUS invalidated the list of states that have to apply for pre-clearance. Technically, the rule is still on the books, that some states need to be pre-approved, but now there is no standard by which to choose those states. As a result, it is now open season in the Deep South and southern states can make any changes they want without approval from Justice.
What’s the big deal with needing an ID to vote?
Many people around my age don’t really see an issue with needing an ID to vote because we’ve always assumed that it was necessary for everyone. Older people hadn’t needed one previously. Under today’s laws, first-time voters in most states who register by mail must present a photo ID, a copy of a current bill, or a bank statement. In a few states, they recommend bringing some form of photo ID but it’s not expressly necessary in most locations. Prior to 2006, no state required a voter to produce government-issued ID to vote. You registered, got your voting card, and that’s what you used. A lot of older people who’ve never had an ID and never needed one to vote are now forced to get one. There are countless stories of older people in their 80s and 90s who’ve been voting for longer than our parents (or grandparents) have been alive who would now be required to obtain a photo ID for the first time in their lives.
11% of voting-age US citizens don’t have a government issued ID. They wouldn’t be able to vote. Of those 21 million citizens, the majority are young people, Hispanic, poor, and/or have not gone to college. That’s a big swath of Democratic voters that Republicans are attempting to disenfranchise.
Also, IDs are not without cost in many locations. Requiring someone to pay $25 to secure a photo ID just to vote is akin to the poll taxes which kept many poor blacks from voting prior to 1965 because they couldn’t afford to. $25 doesn’t sound like a lot to most of the people reading this right now, but if you are dependent upon the government for your livelihood (and most likely a voting Democrat) and you budget your finances down to the cent, $25 will many times deter you from attempting to vote at all. Additionally, factor in the process and cost to secure the necessary documents to get a photo ID (for example, an elderly woman born in rural South Carolina who now has to petition the state for her birth certificate) and you have a situation where people are paying time and money just to vote.
Republicans found a “solution” to a problem that never existed. They claim voter ID laws will cut down on voting fraud when the overwhelming cause of voting fraud comes from absentee ballots and officials who try to change the voting results. There have been less than 100 convictions for voter ID fraud over the past 5 years.
Does it matter where people vote?
The last presidential election showed a staggering number of people waiting in line for hours and hours to cast their vote. Most of those people in line were minorities at their neighborhood voting location.
For an example of voting location changes struck down because of the VRA, we can look at Houston. In one suburb, there were 84 voting places and they wanted to reduce the number to just 12, most of which were in white neighborhoods. The location in the neighborhood with the highest percentage of white people was slated to serve 6,500 voters. The location in the neighborhood with the highest percentage of minorities was slated to serve 67,000 voters. Clearly the second location would have prohibitively long lines, causing many voters to stay at home or go to work because they couldn’t afford to wait all day to vote. SCOTUS didn’t approve that scheme and that legislation died.
What’s gerrymandering?
Gerrymandering is the process by which voting district lines are re-drawn to capture certain demographics. I’m going to try to explain it in the simplest terms.
This below is Square City and it’s standing in for any number of metropolitan areas throughout the US. I’ve divided the city into four districts. Red is where Republicans live and Blue is where Democrats live. I did it this way to capitalize on the prevailing thought that most inner-cities have minority residents while all of the white residents have moved to the suburbs.
In the first Square City example, you see the district is drawn simply and evenly with 4 identical sections. Sections 1 and 3 will probably elect a Democrat while Sections 2 and 4 will probably elect a Republican. Let’s say that statewide, Republicans control congress and they want to ensure that they keep a Republican majority. Square City is an easy way to add more Republican representatives during the next election through gerrymandering. They propose to redraw the voting districts this way.
Now, the inner city is all one section and the other three are Republican suburbs. My example is super-simple. In practice, Republicans have carved out some truly outlandish shapes in order to essentially rig future elections. Check out North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District that makes absolutely no sense at all.
After Obama won in 2008, the country’s Republicans fired up their constituents and won countless elections in 2010. Gerrymandering became the hot topic and every piece of voter ID legislation was introduced by a Republican majority legislature aside from the state of Rhode Island.
Does this even matter anymore?
SCOTUS’ decision apparently rested on the fact that, to quote Justice Roberts, “Our country has changed.“ They feel that the 60 years that have passed since the VRA more than makes up for the 100 years that passed between Reconstruction – when blacks were voted into office for the first time before the Klan and their intimidation tactics put a stop to that – and the 1960s.
Nice thought. Racism is over. Warm Fuzzies all around.
But.
The very same day SCOTUS came down with their decision, Texas said they would enact their voter ID laws (which reduce the acceptable forms of ID from 8 photo & non-photo categories to just 4 photo categories) and would re-start legislation to redraw many of their voting districts. Texas’ previous attempts to do just that were denied by the justice department for being unfair to minorities. Newly-minted national hero Senator Wendy Davis owes her seat to the fact that Texas was unable to redraw her district into a shape more favorable to Republicans.
Mississippi is now moving forward with their voter ID laws. The same goes for Alabama. Both states were denied by the Justice department under the very same parts of the VRA they just struck down because the country has apparently changed. North Carolina didn’t even bother to petition the Justice department to approve their voting legislation because they knew it would be denied. With the new ruling, they’re going full steam ahead with a plan to enact new voter ID rules, reduce early voting (which disproportionately affects African Americans working for hourly wages), and eliminate Sunday voting (which led directly to Obama’s election, as massive numbers of black churches organized their congregations to vote after church). This would have been deemed racist under the VRA, but now they can do it. Since the year 2000, 74 different pieces of proposed voting legislation were denied by SCOTUS under the VRA…but Justice Roberts says the country has changed since 1965.
In a nutshell, the Supreme Court just turned the clock back to the 1960s and the South is beginning to do all they can to place as many restrictions on voting that are legally possible, restrictions that are primarily put in place to keep minorities from voting. Congress can take up the matter and draft new legislation, but considering they can never agree on anything, the outlook isn’t that bright.
I advise you to call your 90 year old great grandmother on social security and tell her to start collecting her coins to buy an ID so she can vote in the next election. That is, unless the South can think of some other creative ways to keep Democrats away from the polls. Let’s hope dogs and fire hoses don’t come back in style.
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