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(Article changed on February 28, 2013 at 10:24)
(Article changed on February 28, 2013 at 08:11)
"stripes and stars" by Marta Steele
Hundreds of demonstrators showed up early this
morning in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building to participate in a rally
protesting the likely Supreme Court decision to overturn Section 5 of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Sponsored by some sixty-two civil rights
organizations, including NAACP, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights under Law, SEIU, the League of Women Voters, and
Rainbow Push, the all-day event began with a Congressional press
conference from 8:30 to 9 that included Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and civil rights icon John
Lewis
(D-GA), who were among those who attending the historic hearing.
Section 5 of the VRA requires preclearance from a federal
court or the U.S.
Department of Justice for new election laws in all or parts of 16
states with a history of minority voter suppression . Many of those covered
states are in the South , as the VRA was initially passed in 1965 as a
response to Jim Crow era suppression, and as part of the Congressional mandate
of the 15 th Amendment, ratified 95
years earlier in 1870, to "enforce [the amendment] by appropriate
legislation."
The majority of participants in yesterday's rally were
African Americans, along with Latinos, Asian Americans, LGBTQs, and whites.
Many had traveled from as far away as the deep South, including Mississippi and
Alabama, said by one speaker to be the two states that had delivered the fewest
votes for Obama in 2012 [fewest, with
such large black populations?].
The rally itself, hosted by Joe Madison of
Sirius XM Radio, lasted from 9am well into
the early afternoon . A post- hearing conference call
with NAACP , LDF,
ACLU, and the Lawyers'
Committee
for Civil Rights Under the Law was followed by a bus trip to
Richmond by the Freedom Riders for Voting Rights, who had come all the way from
Selma, Alabama, part of Shelby County, the now-infamous plaintiff in the case
argued today, Shelby County v Holder.
A " post-argument analysis blog
with legal experts and Alliance for Justice " will be held at 5:30 this
afternoon at http://afijjusticewatch.blogspot.com/search/label/VRAanalysis .
After three hours of speeches (more on these
below), activists, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III,
who had attended the SCOTUS
hearing
as well , emerged with their reports: the " ladies "
(Sotomayor, Ginsberg, and Kagan) fought like hell , they reported , while
one of the plaintiff attorneys argued that Shelby County should not be subject
to Section 5 of the VRA because other municipalities have records " just as
bad or worse ,"
Sharpton told the spirited crowd.
[An
oft -quoted argument has been that Section 5 is no longer needed because of Obama's two
consecutive victories; other speakers referred to this monumental event as a
stepping stone in a long process rather than achievement of " the
dream " itself,
in a national
climate that remains hugely discriminatory .]
Sharpton continued that Sotomayor, Ginsberg,
and Kagan questioned why no statewide officials in Alabama, the " Heart of
Dixie state " were
black, with
a population that was one-quarter African-American. In response,
the proponents in the Shelby case noted during the hearing that, the
state had indeed elected blacks to state office, if not state wide office, in
a proportion reflective of the population over all .
Justice Scalia offered his brainstorm, calling
Section 5 " racial
entitlement ."
But even worse, continued Sharpton, he " loses
his soul " when he
sees Clarence (" er,
Justice Thomas ," he
quickly added).
Sharpton offered no conclusive predictions on the final outcome of
the case, to be published this summer, suggesting he couldn't predict in
which direction the almost certain 5-4 decision would fall either
way. Justice Kennedy is believed to be the lone swing vote in
the case .
And if Section 5 is struck down, Sharpton
continued, "we'll go back
to the streets ," the way
we first got the VRA. Our forebears suffered and died -- we won't lose
that , he
said .
