What’s good for the goose is NOT good for the gander?
Rapid Response Teams in Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Virginia
This yesterday from U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia in United States v. Windsor, … et.al. [DOMA]:
“We have no power to decide this case and even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America… It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive….”
However, the day before, he voted with the majority (Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, Attorney General, et.al.) in invalidating Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act that had been passed by both houses of the U.S. legislature (reauthorized three times, most recently in 2006 with voting 390 – 33 in the House and 98 – 0 in the Senate.) Section 4 contains the formula used by Congress to determine which states and local governments must receive federal pre-approval before changing their voting laws. The majority opinion argued that progress in voter registrations and turnout erased the need for Section 4, with Chief Justice Roberts, long a foe of the Act, referring specifically to gains in minority voting in the U.S. southern states
It would appear that Scalia is saying, “We, the conservative members of the Court, can overturn democratically adopted legislation if it goes against our principles and we can find a spurious reason, but we don’t believe the liberals on the Court ought to be able to do the same thing.”
Interestingly, 6 of the states that Title 4 was enacted for have, in the last 24 hours, enacted new Voter ID laws. Talk about quick reaction time! One, Arizona, had just had it’s previous law struck down by the Supreme Court (7 to 2) LAST WEEK! The state of Texas took only a few hours to pass a law REQUIRING a U.S. passport in hand as well as proof of state residency to vote.
In answer to these states reasoning that this will stop voter fraud (when the real reason for these laws is to hinder minority voting, and now, with Texas and its passport requirement, the elderly) several studies have found “that voter fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is nearly non-existent and much of the problems associated with alleged fraud in elections relates to unintentional mistakes by voters or election administrators.” – Brennan Center for Justice study (www.brennancenter.org/issues/voter-fraud). What has happened, in much more substantial numbers of cases, is election officials ‘misplacing’ ballots, voting machine irregularities, and other such incidents.
