Rick Moran writes for PJMedia.com about the implications of a recent poll.
Democrats are perfectly willing to kick the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the curb if it means gaining power in Washington, according to a Politico poll published on Wednesday.
The Republican push for redistricting across the South has Democrats in full panic mode. They may still be caterwauling about “disenfranchising” black voters in the Supreme Court’s Callais decision, but when it comes to the raw exercise of power, they feel no compunction about breaking up black-majority districts to make red districts in blue states more competitive for the Democrats.
Republicans have long argued that the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was unconstitutional. Indeed, in the last two decades, the Supreme Court has chipped away at some of the Act’s major tenets. In addition to the recent Louisiana v. Callais, which banned racial gerrymandering, Shelby County v. Holder, decided in 2013,struck down a key element of the act, which required certain states to obtain “preclearance” from the federal government before altering any voting laws or district maps. Section 4(b) contained the formula used to determine which areas were subject to this oversight.
It was ludicrous to claim that conditions in the Southern states in 2013 were similar in any way, shape, or form to those in 1965. The literacy tests, “poll taxes,” and other odious requirements to dramatically lessen the black vote were a part of history. In fact, the Voting Rights Act became a victim of its own success, as black voters elected both black and white politicians to office.
The “majority minority” districts were a purely political mechanism to maximize Democratic Party representation in Congress. Ironically, it probably limited the number of blacks in Congress, as the act of concentrating the black vote to guarantee a black representative in a single district no doubt cost a black candidate victory in another district where blacks could have made the difference in a close race.
