Truth

The Supreme Court recently tossed out federal oversight for specified states which were determined to have imposed racially-motivated restrictions on local voters under a 1965 statute. The court held that the law, although amended many times since initial passage, was enacted so long ago that the assumptions that gave rise to the oversight laws could no longer automatically be assumed to have retained validity into the contemporary age.

What they didn’t do was permit racial criteria to return to making voting more difficult, notably focusing on the voter ID laws. Additionally, states have been gerrymandering – allowing the majority in power in the state house to shape voting districts (see the above pictorial example) for the House of Representatives that reinforce their power at the expense of voters who might oppose them. Federal suits across the land are re-challenging these discriminatory statutes… from North Carolina to Texas, even adding a state – Wisconsin – where that federal oversight had not applied.

After the above court ruling, the affected states (all with GOP-majority legislatures) immediately reinstated their voter ID laws, and the expected exclusion of minorities – all with a universally-recognized proclivity to vote as Democrats – most certainly kicked in. In mid- November, “a federal judge in Milwaukee considered whether Wisconsin’s tough new voter-ID law violates the 1965 law by placing illegal burdens on minority voters. As in the Texas suit [see below], the Justice Department has sued North Carolina, which in August passed the toughest set of voting rules since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the law was passed with racist intent.” New York Times, November 15^th.  The decision is pending.

Since in earlier blogs I’ve provided the statistics and evidence to support that widely-accepted assertion, the focus of today’s blog is on the Texas response to a federal Department of Justice attack on Texas’ post-decision reinstatement of voter ID requirements but, more particularly, a suit against their use of state legislative power to create Congressional voting districts that may in fact distort voter representation. Gerrymandering. Texas’ admission in court filings in opposition to the new DOD attack is simply stunning. It is, however, an elegant and simple truth.

The state’s response to the DOD suit admits that the redistricting efforts and voter ID statutes discriminate, but that the kind of discrimination that they are intending is not protected by statute or court rulings anywhere. They are, pure and simple, discriminating against Democrats. The state presents this rather clear response: “It is perfectly constitutional for a Republican-controlled legislature to make partisan districting decisions, even if there are incidental effects on minority voters who support Democratic candidates.”

It’s the way it has always been done, and absent a Constitutional amendment requiring fair representational districts that actually reflect the true wishes of all voters, they maintain, they are free to twist and squirm to create districts that reinforce incumbents and deny or diminish representation to those who oppose them. America, land of the free and home of the biased.

For those who hold America’s model up to the rest of the world, it is a staggeringly terrible admission that we have statutorily enforced a decision, which the Supreme Court could say is not violative of the Constitution, that denies the poor, racial and ethnic minorities who live in common neighborhoods, of a vote equal to white, traditional, mainstream conservative voters who truly and rather openly are committed to discriminating against these “lesser” interests. I have read several estimates on the numerical impact of gerrymandering across the United States, the consensus of the experts suggests that one urban vote (whether racial and ethnic minorities abound) is worth 3/5 of one rural vote (where typically, white traditional conservatives dominate the census statistics). I suspect Texas politicians might even accept that allocation number.

Writing for the above NY Times article, University of California (Irvine) Law Professor Richard Hasen responds to that simple Texas statement quoted above. “Leaving aside that whopper — laws that dilute black and Hispanic voting power have more than an ‘incidental’ impact — the statement, part of a court filing in August, was pretty brazen. Minority voters, in Texas and elsewhere, tend to support Democrats. So Republican officials, especially but not only in the South, want to reduce early voting; impose voter-identification requirements; restrict voter registration; and, critically, draw districts either to crowd as many minority voters into as few districts as possible, or dilute concentrations of minority voters by dispersing them into as many white-controlled districts as possible.”

The challenge to conservative traditionalists is substantial. The United States has become a majority of minorities. To meet this rising tide of substantial change, these conservative incumbents could redirect their party platforms to attract more voters while still adhering to the majority of their conservative views – the entire notion that underpins any claim of a democratic form of government… or they could work to make sure that such true majority voices remain unheard and under-represented, even if it means destroying any claim that the United States is the greatest democracy on earth. Guess what path they have selected.

I’m Peter Dekom, and perhaps we should simply accept that for most people outside the United States, we are no longer held up as a model for much of anything except gridlock and hypocrisy.