Time for a 2nd look at the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Pt. II

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Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, a case that will decide the survival of the preclearance provisions of the Act that requires federal oversight of voting practices in localities in 16 states.

As you will recall, the VRA struck down the last vestiges of Jim Crow laws that had plagued black voters, particularly in the South, since the days of Reconstruction following the Civil War.

At issue in Shelby County v. Holder is the relevance of a law passed nearly 50 years ago that requires even the slightest changes made to municipal voting procedures to be signed off by the United States Justice Department.

We live in a time when Mississippi has more elected black officials than any state in the Union (not per capita but total) and it would appear that in at least two instances we have blogged about with respect to the VRA, the law seems to be applied more towards the furthering of the race-based grievance industry than truly protecting the rights of minority voters.

Last week, we re-published a post from a year and a half ago regarding the North Carolina city of Kinston where the DOJ determined that black voters necessarily needed to know who were the Democratic Party candidates on the city ballot.


Below is a re-publishing of a post from 3 years ago whereby the DOJ felt compelled to intervene on behalf of the city of Port Chester, CT in order to ensure that Hispanic candidates were sufficiently represented on the village's board of trustees:

When the usual district gerry-mandering just won't do.


We're surprised the following hasn't gotten much play, particularly in the righty blogosphere:

Arthur Furano voted early — five days before Election Day. And he voted often, flipping the lever six times for his favorite candidate. Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation.

Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday.

Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.

Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.

Furano and his wife, Gloria Furano, voted Thursday.

"That was very strange," Arthur Furano, 80, said after voting. "I'm not sure I liked it. All my life, I've heard, `one man, one vote.'"

Bless your heart, Mr. Furano. One man - one vote is now apparently illegal and you should check yourself before speaking of it with such favorable sentiment.

Well, since Hispanic voter participation seems to be an issue here, we know of a couple of Black Panther "poll workers" in the Philly area, who instead of sitting behind bars have got some free time on their hands as the miserable hack who runs the Justice Department dropped their voter intimidation case.

Perhaps the judge and the miserable hack could've sent those two to Port Chester, billy clubs in hand, to roust voters with Hispanic-y sounding last names from their homes in order to get them to the polls thus better preserving our once-hallowed concept of one man - one vote. Just give them a phone book, a GPS and let'em do their thing.

That idea is all pretty quaint now as the governing concept of democracy circa 2010 is no longer equality of opportunity but rather equality of results.

Hooray! Finally, a just result. We voted in a Hispanic!

Combine this with the case in Kinston, North Carolina, where the Justice Department overturned the city's decision to forego putting party affiliation next to candidates' names as it was Justice's belief that the blacks in that community would not know who the Democrats were and thusly, would not vote for them and you have yet another example of the soft bigotry of low expectations of minorities held by liberals.

The paternalism sickens us and makes us wonder from what dark recesses of the statis mindset this plantation mentality comes.

(end of re-post)




One must really question the relevancy of a law that is used to make hash of the letter and intent of a principle that is sacred to democracy.