Week In Review

Because of assignments for my summer classes, I have been, up to now, unable to expound on what's been happening in the political world. Rather than write twenty-seven posts to make up for lost time, I thought I'd simply cover the highlights (or, perhaps more fittingly, the lowlights) in one large omnibus post.

What a week it has been! Already we have seen one of the worst decisions to come from the Supreme Court in recent memory, followed by one of the Court's best decisions.

I'm referring in part, of course, to the Court's execrable ruling on the Voting Rights Act. A majority of conservative judges, in their infinite wisdom, ruled unconstitutional section five of the Act, which provided a formula for determining which counties of certain states required preclearance before passing new voting laws. The basis for this decision was the fact that section five "used data from the 1960s and 1970s", and "our country has changed since then".

The court, ruling in a challenge brought by Shelby County, Ala., left standing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which gives the federal government authority over states that historically suppressed minority votes. But that section was effectively nullified by the court, which said the formula used to identity such jurisdictions, contained in Section 4, is not constitutionally valid because it is based on decades-old voter-participation data.

 Source: Wall Street Journal

Using old data did not seem to be a problem as recently as 2006, when a Republican-majority Congress voted nearly unanimously to extend the Voting Rights Act. Bush, to his credit, did one of the few right things of his presidency and promised to sign the legislation that extended the Act.

Source: Washington Post

But somehow, the Act became unconstitutional in the seven years since Congress last extended it, thus prompting the conservative justices to strike down the enforcement part of the law. Because, after all, we elected a black President in 2008, and a couple of black state Representatives successfully ran unopposed in some Southern state. Therefore, in the apparent logic of the Supreme Court, racism no longer exists!

Never, in my twenty-nine years, did I think that the Voting Rights Act was either controversial or in danger of being struck down.

So what happens now? The Voting Rights Act goes back to - you guessed it! - our notoriously inept Congress, full of obstructionist Republicans who will likely view the situation as a boost to their electoral chances and thus have no motivation to act.

A nice big judicial "screw you" to the minorities of this country. I'm sure, however, that the Voting Rights Act ruling won't be seen as judicial activism. That only happens when the Court hands down decisions that liberals like.

In much happier news, the Supreme Court also saw fit to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)!

The 5-4 decision read: "DOMA violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the federal government. Under DOMA same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways.
"By its great reach DOMA touches many aspects of married life from the mundane to the profound."

Source: ABC News



Jurist Antonin Scalia, however, is apparently outraged over the ruling. An enterprising journalist from Talking Points Memo collected some of the more notable passages from Scalia's dissent:

Referring to the issue of standing, Scalia wrote, “I find it wryly amusing that the majority seeks to dismiss the requirement of party-adverseness as nothing more than a ‘prudential’ aspect of the sole Article III requirement of standing.”

“As I have said, the real rationale of today’s opinion, whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow, is that DOMA is motivated by ‘bare … desire to harm’ couples in same-sex marriages.”

“As I have observed before, the Constitution does not forbid the government to enforce traditional moral and sexual norms,” Scalia wrote. “However, even setting aside traditional moral disapproval of same-sex marriage (or indeed same-sex sex), there are many perfectly valid — indeed, downright boring — justifying rationales for this legislation. Their existence ought to be the end of this case.”

“We have no power to decide this case,” Scalia wrote. “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.”

“The Court is eager — hungry — to tell everyone its view of the legal question at the heart of this case.”

(Emphasis mine)
Source: Talking Points Memo

The last quote above is especially ridiculous coming from a Court who, only a day before, ruled unconstitutional a law that had been democratically adopted. Now Scalia is concerned with judicial activism involving the elimination of laws enacted through the democratic process?

In even better news, Secretary of Defense Hagel has promised that the Pentagon will grant marriage benefits to same-sex couples, saying that it was "the right thing to do".

Source: The Hill

If you're a part of the LGBT community or one of its supporters - or if you're white and a Republican - this has been an excellent week for you. If, however, you're a minority who is hoping to vote in the next election, it has perhaps been the week from hell. Maybe - just maybe - there's still hope....