Shelby County V Holder

Essential To Pass Voting Rights Legislation, Which Republicans In Senate Supported Unanimously In 2006!

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Voting Rights legislation is essential if America is to remain a democracy.

The 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24, and 26th Amendments guarantee voting rights, as did the Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed as part of the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Supreme Court in 2013 weakened the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County V Holder, and have caused the deterioration of voting rights, now accelerated by many states in the South and Midwest and Mountain West creating all kinds of restrictions, designed to prevent minority groups, the elderly, college students, and the disabled from ability to vote.

This MUST be reversed by dropping the filibuster and allowing “reconciliation” to be used to insure voting rights are restored to what they were.

The shocking thing about this whole matter is that the Republican party unanimously supported renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 under the Presidency of Republican George W. Bush! The vote was 98-0, so therefore, there is no excuse for Republican opposition other than they have allowed their party to be hijacked by Donald Trump and his supporters.

But it is still hard to believe that at least some Republican senators–such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and others who voted to convict Donald Trump, and also those Republican Senators retiring in 2022, should by their consience, if they have one, support the voting rights legislation promoted now–the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and the Freedom To Vote Act.

Nineteen states have passed 34 restrictive laws, which would be negated by passage of the above two proposed laws. Meanwhile, 25 states have passed 62 expansive laws, and the right to vote should be the same in every state, so action to overcome restrictions is essential!

The Supreme Court Has Lost All Dignity, Respect, And Legitimacy, And The John Roberts Led Court Will Face Historic Repudiation!

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The Supreme Court of the United States was created in 1789 to judge the constitutionality of all laws and actions, and promote the rule of law.

In recent decades, it has become a weapon of right wing extremism, and has lost all dignity, respect, and legitimacy, and is in the worst constitutional crisis in a century!

The conservative movement to promote an extremist Court will cause a repudiation in history, as they have done great damage in the past generation in such cases as Bush V Gore in 2000 (interfering in the Presidential Election of that year); Citizens United in 2011 (that allowed corporations to be considered people); Shelby County V. Holder in 2013 (gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965); and now are almost certain to do in the abortion case before the Court (Dobbs V Jackson Women’s Health Organization).

Never has the Supreme Court taken away a right once granted, as in the case of Roe V Wade, alloing abortions in the first two trimesters of a pregnancy, and including the factors of rape, incest, and the life of the mother.

It is unseemly, and reprehensible, that women are being informed that religious fanatics can interfere with their personal rights to control their own bodies, and it will lead to many self mutilations and suicides by women desperate to end an unwanted pregnancy, often brought about by violence perpetrated by men!

The Chief Justice, John Roberts, will see his reputation as the 17th person to hold that position, sullied and repudiated in history, if he cannot convince at least one other conservative Justice to join him and the three Democratic appointments to uphold Roe V Wade!

The move to add membership to the Court, and promote term limits in the future, will be encouraged to occur, as the Supreme Court has lost whatever halo it has had over the past generations!

Voting Rights Extension 2006: 98-0 In Senate! Voting Rights Extension 2021–Rejected By Republicans!

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Today is the 10th Anniversary of the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC.

It is very clear what Martin Luther King Jr. would say if he was alive today–total anger at what the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, has done–to work to destroy the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 under Lyndon B. Johnson, and reaffirmed as recently as 2006, under President George W. Bush, when the US Senate voted 98-0 to renew it, with full backing of the Republican President and his party unanimously.

But now, in the age of Donald Trump and a Republican Party morphing into the old segregationist Southern Democratic Party from Reconstruction times to the 1960s, we are stunned to see not one Republican Senator—not even Mitt Romney, nor Ben Sasse, nor Lisa Murkowski, nor Susan Collins—willing to vote to overcome the filibuster tactic. This vote was just to consider and discuss and debate a Voting Rights Act to restore the damage done by the US Supreme Court in 2013 in Shelby County V Holder, and by many Southern and Western states legislatures since then, to restrict the right to vote, the bedrock of a democracy!

The Republican Party has lost its credibility completely as a serious alternative conservative party, and now is just a bunch of power seeking, phony so called “religious’ people, who are out to promote white supremacy, nativism and misogyny! They are out to promote election subversion and voter suppression and deny the right to vote to millions of Americans!

The party will not recover long term if it does not abandon Donald Trump now, and there is no sign of that occurring!

56th Anniversary Of Voting Rights Act, Now A Major Crisis Of American Democracy!

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On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, supported by Democrats, but also a substantial number of Republicans, who understood that voting rights were the central human right in a nation that was a democracy.

It was a reaction against the denial in the former Confederates states of the South to enforce the 15th Amendment of 1870, which gave men of color the right to vote after the Civil War.

Now, America is again in a crisis, as the Supreme Court cut back enforcement of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, in Shelby County V. Holder, and many Republican states are now claiming voter fraud in 2020, when it did not exist, and are passing all kinds of restrictions to prevent minority voters, young voters, and poor people from their constitutional right to vote.

Texas, Georgia, Florida and Arizona, and their crooked, corrupt governors and state legislatures are trying to fix the results of future elections, by making it impossible or extremely difficult for people to vote, and Texas has seen the Democrats in the state legislature for the past month and more, leaving the state and coming to Washington, DC to promote a restoration of the Voting Rights Act.

These Texas Democrats face arrest and possible imprisonment, which should not be permitted, and instead, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the right wingers in his state and others, should face prosecution for what they are attempting to perpetrate.

H R 1–For the People Act, and H R 4–John Lewis Voting Rights Act, need to be passed into law now!

Republicans Bringing Back The “Jim Crow Era” On Voting Rights

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The Republican Party is shaming its own history by bringing back the “Jim Crow Era” on voting rights.

The movement to guarantee that all Americans can vote is being made out to be a bad development, with false claims of voter fraud, when the Presidential and Congressional Elections of 2020 were conducted properly, with no evidence of fraud.

But former President Donald Trump has claimed he won the Presidency, still saying so seven and a half months after the election results were finalized.

So the Republicans are preventing a full restoration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was curtailed by the evil action of the John Roberts Supreme Court in Shelby County V Holder in 2013.

This is very frustrating, as the filibuster, requiring 60 votes just to debate the topic, is being denied!

It will require voters to be very dedicated to overcome the corrupt, evil action of the Senate Republicans!

Corporations And The Republican Party: Double Standard On Freedom Of Speech

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party in Congress and the states loves getting financial support from corporations, and loves that the Supreme Court in 2013 said corporations are people in Shelby County V Holder, which did great harm to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But now, when corporations, including Major League Baseball and Delta Airlines and Coca Cola take a stand against Georgia putting barriers in the way of the right to vote, because the Republicans lost Georgia in the Presidential Election of 2020 and both Georgia Senate Seats, Republicans no longer believe in freedom of speech for corporations, and want to punish corporations that support voting rights.

So the Republican Party has a double standard on freedom of speech, and exude hypocrisy, so what else is new in Republican Party politics?

Voting Rights Act 1965, And Now The Same Battle Again, This Time Caused By Republicans, NOT Southern Democrats!

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On this day, 56 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke before Congress, and called for a Voting Rights Act to insure all Americans could vote.

This marked the South leaving the Democratic Party, and becoming Republicans, and now Republicans are working to deny African Americans and Latinos the right to vote all over again.

This is because the Supreme Court in 2013 allowed much of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to be repealed by the conservative Court, in Shelby County V. Holder, and opened up massive efforts to limit voting.

The new bills HR 1 and HR 4, now introduced in Congress, are trying to prevent state legislatures from bringing back the old days of voter suppression.

The Republican Party, rather than broaden their base, are trying to insure that only white voters, the Trump voters, will be able to control government, but it is a losing strategy long run, as nothing will prevent the white majority from declining to less than 50 percent of all Americans in the next quarter century.

So the Republican Party is in its death knell, unless and until they realize the future, and adapt to it soon!

Two Secretaries Of State Running For Governor And Suppressing Voter Rights–Brian Kemp In Georgia And Kris Kobach In Kansas

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A new level of political corruption is now occurring in upcoming state elections for Governor.

In Georgia, Brian Kemp is the Secretary of State since 2010, responsible for keeping track of voter registration. He is the Republican nominee for Governor, and has refused to allow updating of registration, with 70 percent of 53,000 voters not being allowed to vote being African Americans, and with his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, an African American female, protesting that Kemp should resign as Secretary of State, because he is interfering unjustly with the right to vote. Kemp has dismissed such calls for him to give up his government position as Secretary of State, despite the fact that he will be leaving that position at the end of the year, whether he wins or loses the Governorship race, but trying meanwhile to stack the deck against his African American opponent.

In Kansas, Republican nominee for Governor Kris Kobach, has been Secretary of State since 2011, and has removed nearly 20,000 people from voter rolls, and implemented some of the strictest voter ID laws in America. He has been noted nationally for his charges of voter fraud being widespread, and he has purged voter rolls in the same corrupt way that Kemp has in Georgia, and it will affect voting next month, as it will in Georgia. He has been the strongest advocate of nativism toward immigrants, and headed a White House Presidential Advisory Commission On Election Integrity in May 2017, disbanded without a report in January 2018. Kobach has been a lightning rod for many who have accused him of massive corruption, and discriminatory policies toward immigrants, making him the hero of white supremacists and nativists, even more than Brian Kemp.

Both Kemp and Kobach are close friends of Donald Trump, who, of course, has no problem with what they are doing, since it benefits Republicans.

Effectively, both Kemp and Kobach are working to fix the election results by limiting the right to vote, and all this occurring because the Supreme Court in Shelby County V Holder in 2013 allowed weakening of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and gave states the right to set up new voter restrictions.

How The Republican Majority Supreme Court Has Promoted Corporate Control And Voter Suppression, And Undermined American Democracy

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Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission (2010) and Shelby County V. Holder (2013) are the two decisions of the majority Supreme Court in the last decade which have destroyed the concept of fair and free elections in America.

Those cases, and Bush V Gore (2000) have done everything possible to undermine the majority of the people in Presidential elections, as well as other elections in states, which should have favored the Democratic Party.

And now, with a new right wing Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, possibly more extremist than Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito on the Court since April, the future is very gloomy for progressive values and beliefs.

Realize that the Democrats have won the popular vote in Presidential elections six of the last seven times, from 1992 to 2016, only losing to George W. Bush in 2004.

But the Supreme Court Republican majority has allowed corporations to be seen as people, and this has led to extreme abuse by many wealthy corporate special interests, and individual millionaires and billionaires, to put excessive amounts of funding into negative campaigns against liberals and Democrats, and to fund right wing extremist campaigns for legislation they want, and for conservative candidates they desire.

And loosening the enforcement of voting rights by states has allowed many states to place new voter restrictions on poor people, minorities, young people, and the elderly, making voting an onerous process, and in effect, working for voter suppression, which apparently had an effect in the 2016 Presidential election in some states, and for sure, in Wisconsin, one of the crucial states that gave Donald Trump the victory by a very small margin of votes.

The undermining of American democracy is in full swing, and the fear is that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg in regards to Republican and conservative repression of much of the law and legislation, and the election process itself, in the future, with the ability of Donald Trump and the Republican Party to “fix” the future, one of moving backwards by a century or more in so many respects.

“Selma” Film Brings Back Memories Of Bloodshed And Deaths Over Voting Rights, As We Look At Crippled Law Due To Supreme Court!

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Watching the “Selma” film, which has been nominated for Best Film in the Oscar Awards competition, one is reminded of the turmoil, bloodshed, and deaths that occurred over the issue of voting rights in the South a half century and more ago.

The Voting Rights Act, which became law exactly 50 years ago, was designed to prevent any more such denial of the right to vote, but the right wing Supreme Court, including African American Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, changed the effectiveness of the law two years ago, causing new voting restrictions in the past two years in Republican controlled states, and not just in the South, but also in the heartland of the nation, the Midwest and Great Plains States, and even some Western states.

Shelby County V. Holder made it possible once again to create barriers to voting, and the battle for voting rights has new challenges, which already has had an effect on voting in the midterm elections of 2014.

But seeing this film about the Selma to Montgomery march fifty years ago, motivates those who believe in fairness and democracy, to do whatever can be done to restore the purpose of what those people who died or were injured then did, a sacrifice that should not be forgotten!