Introduction to Constitutional Fact: Congress makes the laws, the President enforces the laws, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws (e.g., upholds them or strikes them down) – that is how our entire democratic governmental system works.
Ref: Voting changes
underway in mostly GOP-run states endangers our right to vote fair, free, safe,
and secure. Some areas are great – no problems, but enough “RED” state changes
with USSC support threatens that overall for the nation on that right to vote
fair, free, safe, and secure and thus poses a “clear and present danger” to or
entire democratic system of governing for “We the People” nation-wide and not
just narrow-minded harsh states bent on politics and winning and not much else,
ergo: Gaining and keeping power to ensure they never lose another election,
thus flushing our 245 years of history down the drain.
This article from Vox.com outlines a plan that might help put a stop to that which now
impacts our entire system. It is a Democratic set of proposals designed to ensure
and protect our right to vote free, fair, safe, and secure with this headline:
“Democrats have finally identified the
greatest threat to voting rights — the Supreme Court”
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi is planning a vote on a bill that would undo many of the Court’s
attacks on democracy.
Two things are clear about House Democrats’ new plan
to undo
a conservative Supreme Court’s efforts to restrict the right to vote:
1. Democrats recognize the existential threat that a 6-3
conservative USSC could present to our democracy.
2. Unless a handful of key Senate Democrats stop
propping up the filibuster, the USSC will win this engagement.
Rep. Sewell (D-AL) introduced the new “John R. Lewis Voting
Rights Advancement Act of 2021” with strong leadership endorsements.
The bill is expected to receive a
House floor vote as soon as next week — but will likely die in the
Senate, like other Democratic priorities sabotaged by a handful of Democratic
Senators: namely Manchin (WV) and Sinema (AZ) both loyal
to the filibuster.
Congressional Democrats have backed some version of the John Lewis Act for quite some time. Not long after Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives in 2019, they rallied behind an earlier version of the bill. That earlier version sought to restore preclearance from the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. It required states with a history of racist election practices to submit their election rules to federal approval before those rules take effect. However, the Supreme Court struck down preclearance in the Shelby County v. Holder ruling (2013).
That was when Chief Justice Roberts said
that was outdated since those racist practices were basically gone) – that
ruling was a straight party-line vote in the Republican majority with all
Democrats dissenting.
This newest version of the John Lewis Act is far
more ambitious than the one Democrats supported in 2019. Among those things:
1. It would undo the Supreme Court’s very recent decision
in Brnovich
v. DNC (2021), which imposed new, and seemingly
made-up limits on the VRA’s safeguards against racism in elections.
2. It would also roll back the Court’s decision in Purcell v. Gonzales (2006),
which drastically limits courts’ ability to protect voting rights as an
election draws close.
3. It would create a new process to block certain voting
restrictions in all 50 states.
4. It would prevent the Courts from changing the rules
governing who may cast a ballot while an election is underway.
5. The old way, if staying in place, would retroactively
disenfranchise voters who did not comply with the new rules.
Those Supreme Court decision against the VRA has enabled a
raft of legislation attacking the right to vote franchise in mostly
Republican-controlled states that we see right now (over 400 bills in 29
GOP-run states).
Some of these bills erect hurdles between voters and the polls that might be overcome by Democratic political organizing. However, others make structural changes to elections that could lock Democrats out of power.
In
Georgia, for example, the state Republican Party can take
over local election boards that could potentially disenfranchise
thousands of voters in Democratic strongholds like Atlanta.
If enacted, the new John Lewis Act would be one of the most
ambitious voting rights laws ever enacted by Congress — though, again, its
success depends on Senate Democrats unanimously concluding that protecting
democracy is more important than preserving the filibuster.
In either event, however, the bill is signal to the Roberts
Court, which has been extraordinarily
hostile toward voting rights, that these changes must occur to perverse our
right to vote fair, free, safe, and secure to protect our 245-year old
democracy.
The new John Lewis Act seeks to meet this challenge by
imposing preclearance — typically for at least 10 years — on states where
“15 or more voting rights violations occurred in the previous 25 years, or that
committed 10 such violations if at least one of which was committed by the
State itself.”
Local jurisdictions, such as counties or townships, can also
be subjected to preclearance if they committed three or more violations during
the previous 25 years.
The new John Lewis Act imposes preclearance on any state with
only three violations, if they occur in a local jurisdiction where elections
are administered by the state itself.
This is likely a response to a new Georgia law, which allows
the GOP-controlled State Elections Board to take
over local election administration and potentially disenfranchise
voters en masse.
This related update: GA steps here from
CNN (August 18).
The new version of the John Lewis Act also requires all 50
states — regardless of whether they have a racist history — to submit certain
kinds of election rules to preclearance.
The list of election practices that must be submitted to
federal review by all 50 states includes most laws that reduce “the proportion
of the jurisdiction’s voting-age population” that belongs to a particular
racial or language minority group by 3 percent or more. It includes all
redistricting laws in areas with significant minority population growth. It
includes certain voter ID laws, and it includes many attempts to close or
reduce the hours of polling places.
Again, the mere fact that a state engages in one of these
disfavored practices does not mean that the state’s new rule will be
invalidated. But the election rule may not take effect until federal officials
screen it to ensure that it “neither has the purpose nor will have the effect
of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or
membership in a language minority group.”
The new bill would light the Brnovich v. DNC on fire, too, as well as Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion creating a strong presumption that voting restrictions that were commonplace in 1982 remain lawful.
It fabricates a similar presumption favoring state laws purporting to fight voter fraud.
Brnovich suggests that a state law restricting one method of voting (such as “early voting”) should be upheld if there are “other available means to cast a ballot.”
Much of the new the John Lewis Act appears to
have been drafted by lawyers who went line by line through Alito’s opinion. They
apparently did that in order to cancel every new limit on voting rights made up
by Alito and his colleagues.
Among other things, the bill would forbid courts from considering certain factors in Voting Rights Act cases, such as whether a particular voting restriction “has a long pedigree or was in widespread use at some earlier date,” whether the law is defended as an effort to fight “fraud,” and, in most cases, “whether the state makes other methods of voting available.”
The new bill would also cut off other, more subtle tricks that the justices used to restrict voting rights.
Many of the Roberts Court’s voting rights cases
involve subtle procedural attacks on the right to vote — the sort of attacks
that nominally leave the right in place but that prevent courts from handing
down orders protecting it.
Consider, for example, Purcell. That case held that courts should be reluctant to hand down orders impacting a state’s election practices as an election draws close.
The Court warned: “Court orders affecting elections
can themselves result in voter confusion and consequent incentive to remain
away from the polls. As an election draws closer, that risk will increase.”
There is some wisdom in Purcell’s warning that late-breaking election law decisions might create more problems than they are worth.
But the Supreme Court’s more recent cases
have treated Purcell less as a warning that judges should be careful
when hearing voting rights cases, and more as a ban on election-related orders
close to an election.
In RNC v. DNC (2020), for example, the Supreme Court forbade lower courts from altering Wisconsin’s election practices in the midst of a pandemic, even as some localities were shutting down the overwhelming majority of their polling places because they did not have adequate poll workers to conduct a normal spring election.
The new John Lewis Act provides that, except in extraordinary cases, “proximity of the action to an election shall not be a valid reason to deny relief to a voting rights plaintiff.”
Other provisions of
the bill prevent appeals courts from disenfranchising voters who relied on a
lower court’s order when they cast their ballot.
For example, in Andino v. Middleton a lower court suspended a SC law requiring absentee voters to have another person sign their ballot as a witness.
The Supreme Court eventually blocked that lower court’s decision, but not before thousands of voters had already cast a ballot.
But, three justices would have disenfranchised any voter who did not have their ballot signed by a witness, even if those voters cast that ballot while the lower court’s order was in effect.
The new John Lewis Act prevents appeals courts from
disenfranchising voters in this way by providing that “a reviewing court shall
not order relief that has the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote
of any citizen who has acted in reliance on a lower court’s order.”
It should be noted that these are only some of the provisions in House Democrats’ new, very detailed bill.
The bill also includes safeguards against retrogression: Wherein states enact laws that make voters of color worse off than they were before that law took effect.
It also imposes new disclosure requirements on states and localities.
And, it provides grants to smaller jurisdictions to help them comply with the new obligations imposed by this bill.
All-in-all, however, the primary purpose of the new John Lewis bill appears to be rolling back the Roberts Court’s efforts to restrict voting rights.
It’s a worthy effort assuming that the Court doesn't invent
some reason to strike down this new bill.
My 2 Cents: A long article, but worthy for more research.
I’ll end on this note: The USSC needs some reality and so does the Senate. Both need to move aside and not stop this bill.
Allowing the GOP harsh laws to prevail also threatens members of congress.
If their voters are restricted and can’t vote fairly, then their political careers are in jeopardy, too.
But, I guess there is no concern with Republicans since most of them want the harsh new laws.
Thanks for
stopping by.
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