I'm Queasy About This And You Should Be Too

The Supremes have had a busy week.  DOMA was struck down.  Prop 8 was overturned. And a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was overturned on a 5-4 vote, outraging people across the country.

Article 5 required nine states with a history of discrimination at the polls to clear any changes in polling places and voting laws with the Federal Department of Justice.   A county in Alabama sued, arguing that these were especially burdensome requirements they were placed under and in a 5-4 vote, The Supremes agreed.

I'm queasy about this and you should be too- and here's why:

First,  I'm not going to argue that Article 5 was flawed.  At a certain point it needed to be either revised by Congress or phased out entirely- Congress had the opportunity to do that not to long ago and passed and The Supremes said as much in the majority opinion.  If Congress wasn't going to change this formula/rule to keep up with changing racial mores/attitudes of the country, then the whole damn thing had to go.   That may seem like throwing out the baby and the bathwater just to slap Congress but the Court's Conservative bloc had been widely expected to gut something.  And so they picked this.

But here's the deal:  we've still got a ways to go, racially speaking.  Let's be honest about that.  We're a long way from what we were in 1965 but we're nowhere near the point where checks like this can be done away with.  This decision opens up the possibility of all kinds of shenanigans- none of them good ones.

Burdensome voter ID laws, gerrymandering- all could conspire to create a perfectly nauseating voter suppression machine.  Article 5 wasn't perfect but it was a check against such shenanigans and now it's gone.  I'm very, very queasy about this and you all should be too.

Gerrymandering is a crock of shit.  States should be required by law to use an independent redistricting process- and if Democrats want to tell me that it's just Republicans who use it to their advantage, I want to point out that they do too.  Just look at how good GOPers are doing in California these days.  And while I'm not against voter IDs per say, if the government can't automatically send you a postcard with an ID number once you turn 18, then that's voter suppression, plain and simple.   There are people who genuinely can't just stop what they're going and run on down to the DMV to get a photo ID.   There are people who to put food on the table and work real jobs.   If access to these IDs is universal, easy and free then fine- let's implement them to stop the apparently crippling plague of voter fraud that's sweeping the nation.

But access won't be universal and easy and free, will it?  And gerrymandering will undoubtedly continue.   And so, this decision remains a very bad, bad thing.  I'm queasy about this and regardless of your political affiliation, you should be too.  Our right to vote is being manipulated.  Pass the Tums.