Prevent them from voting

Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend reviews what the Supremes did to the Voter Rights Act a couple days ago. Section 4, the part the Supremes said is unconstitutional, is the formula for declaring which states and districts have to get preclearance before changing voter laws.

Elspeth Reeve of the AtlanticWire lists that formula:

* Was a law, like a literacy test, used to keep people from voting?

* Did less than 50% of the eligible population vote in 1964?

So, yeah, the formula is outdated. It doesn't include such things as Voter ID laws, limits to early voting, purging voter rolls, having ballots only in English when there is a large non-English population, and requiring proof of citizenship. Those are only some of the things the GOP has been doing lately.

But the ruling leaves minority voters exposed. Shelby County, the plaintiff in the case, has a recent history of election shenanigans. And Shelby County, not to mention all of Texas, will certainly take advantage of that exposure. That leaves excluded voters at the mercy of court cases -- and those cost money.

Rachel Maddow, in a 16 minute segment, looks at the inability of the House to get anything of substance accomplished. It is why Obama made a series of actions on climate change that specifically don't need Congressional approval. She then notes that it was into that do-nothing House that the Supremes tossed the Voting Rights Act formula. Along the way Maddow has examples of discriminatory voting (like assigning 6500 white voters to one polling place and 67,000 non-white voters to another) that had been stopped by the VRA. She then shows the eagerness these Southern states have today in enacting new laws to take advantage of this missing formula. So the VRA had a dagger to the heart (as Rep. John Lewis puts it), but is not dead. The doctor leaning over the body is the GOP. What will they do?

This Rep. John Lewis, back in 1965, was on the Edmund Pettis Bridge for a protest and was severely beaten. In a 6 minute interview with Maddow he is sad he will have to fight this battle again.

So, GOP, with all those minority voters not voting for you, do you want to prove you aren't racist? Here's your chance.

Alas, I see another possibility. Why appeal to minorities if the GOP can simply prevent them from voting?