Farrakhan and Democrat State Senator Hank Sanders, who warned voters in 2010 that Alabama may be “going back to the cotton fields of Jim Crow days” if Republicans were put in power, will lead a caravan from Birmingham, through Shelby County and down to the steps of the capitol building in Montgomery. Their goal is to raise awareness about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and to protest Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s comments that it represents the “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires nine states — almost all of which are in the south — to get approval from the U.S. Dept. of Justice for even the slightest change to voting procedures. It was passed in 1965 and imposed on states with a history of racial discrimination.
Almost a half century later, the question before the United States Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder is whether or not Section 5 is constitutional now that the extreme conditions that made it necessary no longer exist.
Comments by conservative Supreme Court justices during oral argument on the case led many onlookers to believe they would have the five votes needed to strike it down.
Justice Scalia said the Voting Rights Act had essentially created “black districts by law.”
Scalia also addressed the Court’s need to rule on the case. “Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes… Even the name of it is wonderful, the Voting Rights Act. Who’s going to vote against that?” He wondered.
But liberal justices argued that Section 5 is still needed.
Justice Elena Kagan said pre-clearance requirements “seem to be working pretty well.” Justice Sonya Sotomayor called out Shelby County directly. “Some parts of the South have changed. Your county pretty much hasn’t,” she said. “You may be the wrong party bringing this.”
President Obama has also expressed his support for upholding Section 5.
In spite of all the flack conservatives get for being “stuck in the past,” it is liberals who seem to lack the ability to let go of antiquated solutions for problems that either no longer exist or have drastically changed over time.
“Progressives are remarkably uninterested in progress,” conservative columnist George Will wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed. “Social Security is 78 years old, and myriad social improvements have added 17 years to life expectancy since 1935, yet progressives insist the program remain frozen, like a fly in amber. Medicare is 48 years old, and the competence and role of medicine have been transformed since 1965, yet progressives cling to Medicare ‘as we know it.’ And they say that the Voting Rights Act, another 48-year-old, must remain unchanged, despite dramatic improvements in race relations.”
And right here in Alabama, Democrats continue to rely on the same tired race-baiting stunts. Jesse Jackson’s not available? Call Sharpton. He’s busy? Somebody get Farrakhan on the line.
What else is going on?
1. Sessions, Cruz, Lee & Grassley team up to fight gang of eight immigration bill
2. Wetumpka Tea Party president gives emotional testimony before Congress
3. Wife of Alabama senator threatens to expose women sending racy photos to her husband
4. McClendon will primary Fielding in Senate District 11
5. Bradley Byrne is running for Congress
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