Tighten the hold on the House

Decision Day is tomorrow. The Supremes will be announcing their rulings on the gay marriage cases at 10:00. Alas, I won't be near a news source until about 11:30. I've written about various places around the country hosting Decision Day events, whether a party or protest depends on how the Court rules. One more Decision Day host has been announced -- the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. This one means a lot to me. They'll hold a 7:00 pm. service to celebrate or commiserate.

A Decision Day event will be held at the Affirmations Center in Ferndale starting at 3:00. I should be able to fit in some of it before heading to Ruth Ellis Center for my usual evening volunteering. I suggested they also do a Decision Day event, though don't know yet what that might be.



Lots of commentary today on the Supremes ruling that guts an important part of the Voting Rights Act. Instead of getting approval from the Department of Justice, states are now free to make whatever changes to voting laws they want. Parties that are injured by those new laws still have the opportunity to go to court -- only after they're injured.

And it won't take affected states long to take advantage of this ruling. It took two hours for the Attorney General of Texas to say the Voting ID law blocked by the DoJ last year is now in effect. And we know who is excluded by that kind of law.

I hear that the Supremes are saying that the particular formula for who needs to go to the DoJ is what is struck down. Congress is invited to come up with a more up-to-date formula. Which probably isn't possible in the current Congress.

Interesting that 20 gay rights groups issued a letter deploring the ruling and pledging to work with coalition partners to undo the damage of this ruling.

Joshua Green of Bloomberg Businessweek says the effect will tighten the GOP hold on the House (and various statehouses and governor offices), but will so disgust everyone else that the presidency (and maybe the Senate) will be even further out of reach. There will be a backlash.

Ari Ezra Waldman notes that today's ruling was a blow to equality. He explains the ruling well. Tomorrow's gay rulings are also about equality. Does today's ruling imply tomorrow's will worsen equality? Waldman says no, though on reflection I'm not sold on his argument. The Voting Rights Act was reauthorized several times and each time, especially in 2006, Congressional hearings created a great deal of evidence of actual discrimination. The Defense of Marriage Act was passed quickly, with "scant hearings and no evidence." Waldman (working from Ginsberg's dissent) says the Supremes should have deferred to Congress in the VRA. But since there is no evidence for DOMA the Supremes shouldn't defer to Congress.

But since the Supremes didn't defer to Congress when they should have, what does that say about tomorrow's ruling?