A history of legal sparing since Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act were removed!

Ian Masters ft Peniel E. Joseph Background Briefing Podcast

A Follow Up Story too "Is History Being Replicated? A perspective on the Black Stance In America through Black Voting and Black Homeownership".

The political scene of Voting has been in a back forth sparring match ever since the removal of Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights act. A little background on this: Section 4 of the Voting Act of 1965 is, or rather was, a provision put in place allowing the U.S Justice department to oversee areas of the country with known histories of discrimination to ensure that these counties refrained from restrictive laws and practices towards Black and other minority voters.

(Image By Harold Mendoza on Unsplash.com)

The Federal Government retained authority over the voting laws of these areas until these areas opted for Bailout, a process that shows to a panel of three judges of the Circuit Court in Washington DC that the municipality had not attempted to use test devices with the effects of voting discrimination, made any changes affecting voting, violated any Constitutional or Federal, state or local laws with respect to voting discrimination, etc.

Section 4 made way for Section 5 of the act, which halted Voting law changes in the before mentioned jurisdictions until a review of administration could be conducted by the Attorney General of that period. Between these two sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to scholars Marcus Hauer’s "SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER: WHY SECTION 5 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT IS CONSTITUTIONAL AND REMAINS NECESSARY TO PROTECT MINORITY VOTING RIGHTS UNDER THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT", voting rights were legislatively made equal under the eye of the U.S administration(a subject discussed more I depth in P SayDat's "Is History Being Replicated?" article).

He also feels that changed in 2013. What happened in then? The case of Shelby County v. Holder.

(Image unassigned at Unsplash.com)

The significance of this case is the fact that the 4th section of the Voting Rights Act, the section that Hauer and other scholars look at as a way to level the playing field of equality in voting, was determined by to be unconstitutional by the 5 to 4 majority vote of the court of appeals who deemed that the restrictions that were placed on specific locations in the 60’s and 70’s were no longer viable or sensible in the current time period. The law did leave room for reinstatement of the law if it is revised in a way that makes sense for the current American climate. Despite that headway, it has not happened.

Current Events

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Immediately after the 2013 decision North Carolina and Texas moved to pass Voter ID laws and laws preventing same day registration, as well as laws reducing the early voting period. Governor of NC, Pat McCrory, said that the intent of the new laws were to “preserve” the integrity of the voting process and deemed that the laws would not take effect until 2016 to give everyone time to be prepared. The U.S 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, however, saw these laws in a different light stating that the laws were meant to “target African Americans with almost surgical precision”. NALEO, the National Association for Latino Democratic Officials, presented statistics on page 5 of their report Latino Voters At Risk: Assessing the Impact of Restrictive Voting Changes in Election 2016 that show that more than 18000 Latino votes also were to be discounted as well. The Court of Appeals shot the law down.

(Image from NALEO report Latino Voters At Risk: Assessing the Impact of Restrictive Voting Laws in Election 2016 at Naleo.org)

The Texas law was passed but then shut down following findings with the Supreme Court that Latino votes would be heavily restricted.. The law was shot down years later but then revised with minor tweaks and passed.

(Image By Tingey Injury Law Firm at Unsplash.com

Other states soon followed suite with 17 states passing 28 laws restricting voting laws. ABC News has even gone as far as calling this new wave of voting restriction laws “The New Jim Crow”. But, according to BrennanCenter.org there have been 361 bills introduced with restrictive provisions in 47 states as of February 19, 2021. Five have already made it to the stature of being fully enacted as laws and at least 55 are moving along through the legislatives process of their respective states. The leaders of this restrictive voting movement according to statistics from the Brennan Center seems to be Texas with 49 bills currently, Georgia who is currently involved in a suit with the U.S Justice Department with 25 bills, and Arizona with 23 bills.

The federal Governments answer to this is to pass its own legislation that override some of these state level restrictions. Texas law makers have already, mentioned setting up their own system to counteract this if it is passed.

What is clear amongst the data presented here is that lines are being drawn and opposing sides are gearing up. On one side you have the Federal Government, the Department of Justice, etc; and on the other you have the States recently freed from laws that they seemed to feel were restrictive, passing laws to restrict others. This could be seen as an assertion of rights or even a power struggle. The collective Government versus the individual states on what the guidelines of fairness and freedom are countrywide could also be deemed a descriptive term of today’s voting climate. Descriptions help with understanding of course, but the big question here is what does all of this mean? Many answers could be given and many would probably be somewhere in the realm of truth but presently one answer stands out more than any other; America is clearly divided!