If You Don't, You're A Racist

In my most recent blog I used, as an example, the lifestyles of NBA players and Rappers that creates families that have one father with multiple children by multiple women.  I received a response that said, since those two groups were usually black, I might be seen as a racist.  I have been on Patch long enough to know that any time a conservative infers possible unacceptable behavior within a minority community, the typical response is usually one of racial nature.  Rather then dealing with actual issue at hand (typically failure in liberal policy) the race card is used to humiliate the conservative and deflect from the real issue. 

On Wednesday, February 27, the Supreme Court will take up the case Shelby County v. Holder.  This case challenges the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by attempting to prove it violates the 10th amendment through “unjustifiably denying equal State sovereignty.”  Section 5 states that a select number of states and counties (mainly in the South and Southwest) must receive preclearance from the Attorney General any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964”.  However, Section 5 was limited to 9 states and 64 counties or townships and allowed the remainder of the country to modify it voting procedures without preclearance.  Hence, the claim of unequal sovereignty. 

I am not going to argue with whether this item was justified at the time.  Many of the states included in the Section 5 preclearance were taking any chance available to limit access of minorities to the voting booth.  Our country has made great strides in the area of racism to include the election of an African American President.  That alone should be reason enough to eliminate this preclearance and allow states the right modify voting laws within their own states to accommodate the changes society has made since 1965. 

Although Section 5 was only originally legislated to last 5 years, in 2006 it was renewed for the forth time, now until the year 2031.  This hand-ties the local authorities and makes them captive to the whims of the Attorney General without having their laws fully examined under the Constitution by the Supreme Court.  Since the Voting Rights Act already makes illegal the practices of racial discrimination in the voting booth, there is no longer a need for preclearance. 

This approaching court case has the liberal media all abuzz regarding the elimination of Section and the instant availability to racism its absence will create.  It is this labeling of racism that has prevented any congress from fully investigating the continued need of Section 5.  Rather then look this logically and truthfully, Republicans are attacked with inaccurate assaults of racism. 

Since the Voting Act went into place, many things have changed with in the 9 states listed in Section 5.  In 1965, every one of those states had a white, male Democrat governor that was opposed to the Voting Rights Act.  It was this opposition at the state and county level that created the need for section 5.  However, today we see Governors from those states from both political parties, both genders and even minority backgrounds.  The legislatures within these states all have a higher minority makeup them the national average.  In reality, the majority of the racism we saw in the South died with the men that supported it.

Today, however, the concern is less about the racism that had existed making a return, but more about voting laws that require effort to vote.  The objects for the elimination of Section 5 carry the facade of racism, and the sting of its labeling, while underneath it is being used to prevent Voter ID.  The citizens of the south are protected by the Voters Act legislation without Sections 5, just like the citizens of the other 41 states.  The difference is, our current government cannot obstruct good laws prior to their getting to the Supreme Court and possible approval.  We are seeing the same thing in Wisconsin, where an activist judge is holding Voter ID hostage when the US Supreme court has already upheld laws of the same nature in other states. 

There is no reason to continue the renewal of a law that unfairly attacks specific regions of the country for the sins of a previous generation.  This is one more layer of governmental control used to prohibit the desires of a citizenry.  It is most obviously a 10th amendment violation and protections it is said to provide, we already have within the rest of Voting Rights Act.  Don't let bogus calls of racism disrupt the unconstitutionality of Section 5.