“As of 2020, the majority of the overall number of seats held in the state legislatures has been switching between the two parties every few years. In the U.S. state legislative elections of 2010, the Republican party held an outright majority of 3,890 seats (53% of total) compared to the Democratic party's 3,450 (47% of total) seats elected on a partisan ballot. Of the 7,382 seats in all of the state legislatures combined, independents and third parties account for only 16 members, not counting the 49 members of the Nebraska Legislature, which is the only legislature in the nation to hold non-partisan elections to determine its members. As a result of the 2010 elections, Republicans took control of an additional 19 state legislative chambers, giving them majority control of both chambers in 25 states versus the Democrats' majority control of both chambers in only 16 states, with 8 states having split or inconclusive control of both chambers (not including Nebraska); previous to the 2010 elections, it was Democrats who controlled both chambers in 27 states versus the Republican party having total control in only 14 states, with eight states divided and Nebraska being nonpartisan.” Wikipedia. For the most part, independents are the deciders these days. Distorted political structures, not true democracy, govern our election processes.
Polls continue to suggest that there are still millions of Americans, including violent extremists, who still adhere to various conspiracy theories that the November presidential election was stolen. As increasing numbers of January 6th Capitol insurrectionists are arrested, as the underlying investigations dig deeper into the extremist edge of the “stop the steal” movement, Homeland Security and the FBI, in ongoing congressional testimony and in their own reports, tell us that underlying domestic terrorism remains this nation’s greatest existential threat.
Yet the primary belief in this “stolen election” – despite a tsunami of evidence to the contrary and over 60 consistent judicial decisions supporting the results and confirming a total lack of any proof of widespread voter fraud – remains both the driving force behind such extremism as well as becoming an anchor plank in the Republican Party. “Donald Trump may be spending his post-presidency golfing at Mar-a -Lago but he remains front and center in the hearts and minds of millions of Republican voters, as evidenced by the 46% who said in a new Suffolk University/ USA Today poll released over the weekend [2/22] that they would join a Trump Party if he decided to split off from the GOP. A whopping 80% of Republican respondents said they support punishing any Republicans in Congress who voted for Trump’s impeachment. He is still their Dear Leader even in exile…
“A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 76% of Republicans still say they believe there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election and that Trump was the legitimate winner. Republican lawmakers in states across the country are now rushing to pass various draconian vote suppression schemes.” TruthOut.org, February 22nd. In short, these numbers suggest that a very substantial mainstream body of voters support any steps necessary to disenfranchise voters who oppose what they believe are traditional mainstream (read: rural, white Christian) values and governance. That only seven Republican Senators voted to convict Donald Trump in the 2021 impeachment trial, and that most of these face local GOP party censure and/or extreme voter pushback, confirms that the Republican Party is Gorilla-glued to the “stolen election” mythology. Confirmed by the parallel treatment of the 10 GOP representatives who voted to impeach the President.
The modern impetus to begin the serial disenfranchisement of such opposition voters began in 2013: “Shelby County v. Holder, legal case, decided on June 25, 2013, in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared (5–4) unconstitutional Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, which set forth a formula for determining which jurisdictions were required (under Section 5 of the act) to seek federal approval of any proposed change to their electoral laws or procedures (‘preclearance’). The formula identified as ‘covered jurisdictions’ any state or political subdivision of a state that as of November 1964 imposed tests (such as literacy tests) or other devices as a condition of registration or of voting and was characterized by voter registration or voter turnout below 50 percent of the voting-age population. Although Sections 4 and 5 of the VRA were originally scheduled to expire after five years, they and other provisions of the act were renewed several times, including in 2006 for a period of 25 years.” Encyclopedia Britannica.
Those “covered jurisdictions” were nine Southern states who had been brought under direct Justice Department supervision for egregious efforts – from poll taxes to onerous photo ID to other clearly racially-driven criteria – to exclude or prevent African American voters from voting. Immediately after Shelby County released such states from such VRA-imposed DOJ supervision, each of these states began re-imposing voter restrictions against minority voters likely to vote Democratic. Especially African Americans. The result in Georgia, from the presidential vote tally to the election of two Democrats to the US Senate, prompted a GOP “never again” program to amend local laws to seal in minority disenfranchisement.
Court challenges to each of these exclusionary efforts have generally resulted in federal courts’ reversing these statutes almost as quickly as they are passed. Readjusted and passed again. And challenged in court again. Since the entirety of the Voting Rights Act was not repealed, it remains the tool for federal courts to contain these attempts at voter suppression. Inevitably, two of these seminal cases are now before the US Supreme Court: “Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee. At issue is the applicability of still-valid Section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or language.
Constitutional scholar and Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, Erwin Chemerinsky, writing for the February 25th ABA Journal, summarizes the import of these cases: “The Supreme Court granted certiorari [an agreement to review] on two issues: 1) Whether Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy, which does not count provisional ballots cast in person on Election Day outside of the voter’s designated precinct, violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act; and (2) whether Arizona’s ballot-collection law, which permits only certain persons (i.e., family and household members, caregivers, mail carriers and elections officials) to handle another person’s completed early ballot, violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or the 15th Amendment.
“The cases are enormously important because the court will likely address what is needed for a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The federal courts of appeals have split—as did the judges of the 9th Circuit—over what is the appropriate test for applying Section 2.
“One interesting aspect of the case before the court involves the shift from the Trump to the Biden administration. The Trump administration filed a brief on behalf of Arizona to reverse the Ninth Circuit. On Feb. 16, the solicitor general’s office informed the Supreme Court that the new administration reconsidered the issues in the case and that it ‘does not disagree’ with the federal government’s earlier stance that the Arizona laws do not violate Section 2, but said that the Department of Justice ‘does not adhere to the framework for application of Section 2 in vote-denial cases’ laid out in the Trump administration’s brief.
“There are two widely different perspectives on voting in the United States. Republicans see voter fraud as a major problem and favor laws like Arizona’s that limit voting. Democrats see voter suppression, especially of minority voters, as a major problem and see Arizona’s law as accomplishing exactly that. How the court decides these cases could have a profound effect on what state laws are enacted and allowed with regard to voting, and who votes and how elections are conducted for many years to come.”
Whether the United States widens the fairness gap in what The Economist calls a “flawed democracy,” tilting heavily in favor of white minority rule, or embraces inclusive democracy is very much on the line… an existential moment for our already challenged and fragile democracy.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I continue to be shocked at how many people are willing to destroy democratic principles to insure a minority hegemony over the majority of Americans.
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