Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Voting Rights

So, the SCOTUS Rump decided 5-4 to effectively end the Voting Right's Act.  The electoral consequences are probably very small at the national level, since the Old Confederacy is a GOP bastion, though Virginia, Florida and to a lesser extent North Carolina are swing states.  Texas could be if Latinos decide to vote en masse.

I would argue that what we are learning from places like Ohio and Pennsylvania is that voting rights need protection beyond Mississippi. Whenever the GOP gets its hands on the levers of power at the state level they restrict voting rights.  That is not a southern phenomenon.  It is a Republican one.

Pre-clearance is (was) important.  But what the Democrats should do is nationalize pre-clearance to keep voter suppression - especially of racial minorities as low as possible.

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