Opening Doors To Being Free
An effort to dismantle the Voters Right Act of the 1960's -a must read!
Today is April 30, 2009, and while the media is making a big splash about President Obama's first 100 days
The Supreme Court is hearing litigation brought forth by several deep south states, Arizona, Alaska, Texas and a few counties in California and New York to dismantle the Voters Right Act of the 1960's....Yes you heard me right!
These states (and counties) allege that the Voters Right Act (which was never made Law and has to be renewed every 25 years) is unconstitutional, in that it gives Blacks and Indigenous Americans (the only people it affects) an unfair advantage in the polling place. WHAT A LIE.
The Supreme Court has an ear to listen as it will be the last really heavy litigation to come their way before they step down and out of the courts as Judges; claiming that what needs to be done is the states and counties heading this fiasco will be mandated to appeal to the Courts prior to any ammendments (or changes in the polling place protocol, practices and procedures) to the Bill, beforehand.
This sounds devastating. The entire landscape of America could be affected by this insidious accusation and untruth. If you can remember what happened with the vote counting machines, this comes in at a tie for first place. I remember what happened. They said the only problem with the miscount was in Florida. Why, because the guys brother was the governor of the State at the time. Then some state had to file some type of other litigation to get something through about absentee ballots and the like. What it turned out to be was other States filing at the Supreme Court level to have the same fiasco happening in their State! So this is tantamount to the same political deviance. Other States will see the petitions and have time to coordinate their efforts accordingly....it seems someone is trying to learn from their mistakes.
All this effort...who will it affect and why does it have to be? This is really left over BU(LL)SH(IT) and Reagan crap...FOR SURE!
Why are these people so damn scared? What have they done? You have national law and then you have international law which is a different story, I'll let it be.....
Suffice to say, whether the media will have anything to say about what's going on in the Supreme Court remains to be seen; but I doubt it. Anything else is far more important, like the SWINE FLU or the south american trade aggreement (when it was obvious that BUSH was not going to renew the Voters Right Act when it did expire on 12/31/07)...... Of course, we have to let them do their job!
To Be Continued............
And here it is :
"A failure by Congress to respond to the Court’s opinion will be fatal to Section 5. If a jurisdiction that is unable to “bail out” from the statute’s coverage yet does not have a reasonably recent history brings a challenge to the statute as currently enacted, it will succeed. The model here is arguably Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, which unanimously set forth the Court’s concerns with the Florida recount. When the Florida Supreme Court failed to respond appropriately - indeed, at all - the U.S. Supreme Court halted the recount outright by a narrow, ideologically divided majority in Bush v. Gore."
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/?s=voters+right+act
Supreme Court issues narrow Voting Rights Act ruling
10:44 am June 22, 2009, by Aaron Gould Sheinin
By Bill Rankin/brankin@ajc.com and Aaron Gould Sheinin/asheinin@ajc.com
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled narrowly in a closely watched case that sought to overturn a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The high court, in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, allowed a small utility district in Austin, Texas, to be exempted from having to seek U.S. Justice Department approval before instituting changes in voting procedures. The 8-1 ruling avoided deciding the weighty question as to whether Section 5 of the act is constitutional.
“Our usual practice is to avoid the unnecessary resolution of constitutional questions,” Roberts wrote. “We agree that the district is eligible under the act to seek bailout.”
Gov. Sonny Perdue, in a legal brief filed in the case, had asked the high court to overturn the Section 5 preclearance provision. Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who oversees elections in the state, had also called for the Court to overturn Section 5.
A spokesman for Handel said Monday they were reviewing the decision. Likewise, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an icon of the Civil Rights Movement who attended the oral arguments on the case, said he would issue a statement later today.
Laughlin McDonald, head of the ACLU’s voting rights project in Atlanta, expressed relief.
“Section 5 survived the latest constitutional challenge and it’s still in force and effect in the covered jurisdictions and that’s certainly a positive result,” McDonald said.
Section 5 requires Georgia, eight other states and parts of seven others with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before making changes to voting procedures. Under the provision, a special unit of the Justice Department must review all such changes, from moving a polling site a few blocks down the street to remapping a state’s congressional districts.
Roberts noted that since 1982, only 17 jurisdictions - out of the more than 12,000 political subdivisions in the covered states - had successfully been allowed to bail out of the act. It is unlikely Congress intended the provision to have such limited effect, Roberts wrote.
The court’s avoidance of the larger issue explains the consensus among justices in the case rendered Monday, where they otherwise likely would have split along conservative-liberal lines.
Justice Clarence Thomas, alone among this colleagues, said he would have resolved the case and held that the Section 5 provision is unconstitutional.
“The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains,” Thomas said.
Thomas, a native of Pin Point, near Savannah, wrote that he agreed with Perdue, although he misspelled the governor’s name (he wrote “Purdue”).
McDonald cited a recent Georgia case as “Exhibit No. 1″ in support of the continued need for Section 5.
In 2007, Handel created a system using a state database to verify voters’ identity and citizenship to meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act.
The Justice Department’s civil rights division has rejected the verification procedure, finding it to be “seriously flawed.” The system mistakenly flagged thousands of eligible Georgia voters, a disproportionate share of whom were minority voters, Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general, told the state on May 29.
Handel called this decision a political one, noting the Obama administration oversees the Justice Department. (The department’s inquiry began under the Bush administration last fall.)
This marked the 172nd time the Justice Department has objected to a change in a Georgia voting procedure since the 1965 act.
Opponents have sought to overturn Section 5 almost since it was enacted. In 1966, a challenge by the
by the state of South Carolina was turned back by the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision.
*****************************************************************************************************************************************
Let the public sector (including the polling place) reflect the demographics of the neighborhood to which it serves and that should solve this problem, in my opinion. It's that simple, but of course impossible to achieve. And yet their is still alot of violence, racism , prejudice discrimination and the likes running rampant in this country. If a state or municipality has preclearance to do anything to deviate from constitutionality, don't think other states, will not closely follow suit (think back to the faulty polling machines that they said were only in Florida when they were all over the country during the previous elections). Are we stupid or WHAT!?
Section 5 of the Voters Right Act prevents these things from occuring and is the only built -in deterrent to violence at the polling place, but alas, a new type of discrimination-FRAUD!.
Bring THE HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT to the floor of Congress before you delete Section 5, Chief Justice John Roberts......
and for a more indepth understanding of what's going on in the Supreme Court on this issue go here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/?s=voters+right+act
The Supreme Court is hearing litigation brought forth by several deep south states, Arizona, Alaska, Texas and a few counties in California and New York to dismantle the Voters Right Act of the 1960's....Yes you heard me right!
These states (and counties) allege that the Voters Right Act (which was never made Law and has to be renewed every 25 years) is unconstitutional, in that it gives Blacks and Indigenous Americans (the only people it affects) an unfair advantage in the polling place. WHAT A LIE.
The Supreme Court has an ear to listen as it will be the last really heavy litigation to come their way before they step down and out of the courts as Judges; claiming that what needs to be done is the states and counties heading this fiasco will be mandated to appeal to the Courts prior to any ammendments (or changes in the polling place protocol, practices and procedures) to the Bill, beforehand.
This sounds devastating. The entire landscape of America could be affected by this insidious accusation and untruth. If you can remember what happened with the vote counting machines, this comes in at a tie for first place. I remember what happened. They said the only problem with the miscount was in Florida. Why, because the guys brother was the governor of the State at the time. Then some state had to file some type of other litigation to get something through about absentee ballots and the like. What it turned out to be was other States filing at the Supreme Court level to have the same fiasco happening in their State! So this is tantamount to the same political deviance. Other States will see the petitions and have time to coordinate their efforts accordingly....it seems someone is trying to learn from their mistakes.
All this effort...who will it affect and why does it have to be? This is really left over BU(LL)SH(IT) and Reagan crap...FOR SURE!
Why are these people so damn scared? What have they done? You have national law and then you have international law which is a different story, I'll let it be.....
Suffice to say, whether the media will have anything to say about what's going on in the Supreme Court remains to be seen; but I doubt it. Anything else is far more important, like the SWINE FLU or the south american trade aggreement (when it was obvious that BUSH was not going to renew the Voters Right Act when it did expire on 12/31/07)...... Of course, we have to let them do their job!
To Be Continued............
And here it is :
"A failure by Congress to respond to the Court’s opinion will be fatal to Section 5. If a jurisdiction that is unable to “bail out” from the statute’s coverage yet does not have a reasonably recent history brings a challenge to the statute as currently enacted, it will succeed. The model here is arguably Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, which unanimously set forth the Court’s concerns with the Florida recount. When the Florida Supreme Court failed to respond appropriately - indeed, at all - the U.S. Supreme Court halted the recount outright by a narrow, ideologically divided majority in Bush v. Gore."
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/?s=voters+right+act
Supreme Court issues narrow Voting Rights Act ruling
10:44 am June 22, 2009, by Aaron Gould Sheinin
By Bill Rankin/brankin@ajc.com and Aaron Gould Sheinin/asheinin@ajc.com
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled narrowly in a closely watched case that sought to overturn a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The high court, in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, allowed a small utility district in Austin, Texas, to be exempted from having to seek U.S. Justice Department approval before instituting changes in voting procedures. The 8-1 ruling avoided deciding the weighty question as to whether Section 5 of the act is constitutional.
“Our usual practice is to avoid the unnecessary resolution of constitutional questions,” Roberts wrote. “We agree that the district is eligible under the act to seek bailout.”
Gov. Sonny Perdue, in a legal brief filed in the case, had asked the high court to overturn the Section 5 preclearance provision. Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who oversees elections in the state, had also called for the Court to overturn Section 5.
A spokesman for Handel said Monday they were reviewing the decision. Likewise, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), an icon of the Civil Rights Movement who attended the oral arguments on the case, said he would issue a statement later today.
Laughlin McDonald, head of the ACLU’s voting rights project in Atlanta, expressed relief.
“Section 5 survived the latest constitutional challenge and it’s still in force and effect in the covered jurisdictions and that’s certainly a positive result,” McDonald said.
Section 5 requires Georgia, eight other states and parts of seven others with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before making changes to voting procedures. Under the provision, a special unit of the Justice Department must review all such changes, from moving a polling site a few blocks down the street to remapping a state’s congressional districts.
Roberts noted that since 1982, only 17 jurisdictions - out of the more than 12,000 political subdivisions in the covered states - had successfully been allowed to bail out of the act. It is unlikely Congress intended the provision to have such limited effect, Roberts wrote.
The court’s avoidance of the larger issue explains the consensus among justices in the case rendered Monday, where they otherwise likely would have split along conservative-liberal lines.
Justice Clarence Thomas, alone among this colleagues, said he would have resolved the case and held that the Section 5 provision is unconstitutional.
“The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains,” Thomas said.
Thomas, a native of Pin Point, near Savannah, wrote that he agreed with Perdue, although he misspelled the governor’s name (he wrote “Purdue”).
McDonald cited a recent Georgia case as “Exhibit No. 1″ in support of the continued need for Section 5.
In 2007, Handel created a system using a state database to verify voters’ identity and citizenship to meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act.
The Justice Department’s civil rights division has rejected the verification procedure, finding it to be “seriously flawed.” The system mistakenly flagged thousands of eligible Georgia voters, a disproportionate share of whom were minority voters, Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general, told the state on May 29.
Handel called this decision a political one, noting the Obama administration oversees the Justice Department. (The department’s inquiry began under the Bush administration last fall.)
This marked the 172nd time the Justice Department has objected to a change in a Georgia voting procedure since the 1965 act.
Opponents have sought to overturn Section 5 almost since it was enacted. In 1966, a challenge by the
by the state of South Carolina was turned back by the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision.
*****************************************************************************************************************************************
Let the public sector (including the polling place) reflect the demographics of the neighborhood to which it serves and that should solve this problem, in my opinion. It's that simple, but of course impossible to achieve. And yet their is still alot of violence, racism , prejudice discrimination and the likes running rampant in this country. If a state or municipality has preclearance to do anything to deviate from constitutionality, don't think other states, will not closely follow suit (think back to the faulty polling machines that they said were only in Florida when they were all over the country during the previous elections). Are we stupid or WHAT!?
Section 5 of the Voters Right Act prevents these things from occuring and is the only built -in deterrent to violence at the polling place, but alas, a new type of discrimination-FRAUD!.
Bring THE HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT to the floor of Congress before you delete Section 5, Chief Justice John Roberts......
and for a more indepth understanding of what's going on in the Supreme Court on this issue go here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/?s=voters+right+act
Tags: discrimination
Add a Comment
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Comment by michael w. caesar on November 6, 2009 at 8:32pm -
Even more evidence of a growing civil dichotomy
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/inequality-policy-2009-10.pdf
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Comment by michael w. caesar on July 5, 2009 at 10:05pm
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Since we are in dialogue, let me say this about your allegation of statements you base on facts and evidence...it was you that said "their is no sane reason why all afro-americans are Democrats". I responded by telling you your statement is false. You insist that you have facts and evidence to support your statement? And to elucidate your request, I explicitly explained to you that I (as well as many others who seek truth) do not like to be lied to. If you insist that this is "absurd hatred", so be it! That's my take on your comment. I don't have to agree with you and won't . as i have told you before, you sound like an argument I chose to avoid; as an effort to avoid the main issue. God help you with your efforts to base your opinions and feelings on facts and evidence! And keep "your" stats to yourself...I don't want to know!
You're some kind of a liar and a powerful accuser!
You could be Purple for all I care, thank-you.
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Comment by JA on July 5, 2009 at 9:24pm -
from John Anthony
The way I see it, is like this:"
But wait a minute here. is this about how you or I see "it", or should we be relying on facts and evidence? My feelings and opinions I always want to be suject to the facts and evidence.
"1. The Republican Party for the most part, is comprised of rich white people and others who's livelihood is centered around catering efforts and support for them."
Do you have any evidence to support this statement??? Just like someone or something has spread the impression that the Republican Party is responsible for slavery, and which we can prove from history is wrong, who or what has spread the impression that your statement is true, When you can provide some statistics to back this up I will believe it. For now though, Democrtic New York leads the nation in wealth!
"2. Rich white people have their own agenda and are not sensitive to the ground roots (which is of interests of rich afro-americans for the most part) efforts that others make (which for the most part does exclude their Republican counterparts) that are designed to improve the quality of life for the masses."
First, I shy away from calling himans by color. Calling persons color is divisive and insulting. Call me brilliant and powerful not black! MY skin color is not me; my personality and character, which is colorless is the real me! And you provided no evidence for your statement.
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Comment by michael w. caesar on June 30, 2009 at 4:57pm
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Okay, you're "not a student of American Politics", but you want to talk to me about Slavery Times, right? That tells me you're white. I had this same conversation with a white person who I didn't get along well with...
Why would I know why you said "African Americans are all democrats" because that's not true either. You seem to be headed towards the same category I made mention of earlier in this writng!, I'm not blogging to make argument with anyone, and your comments seem to take away from the core of my writing. I don't care to even waste my time with such a pursuit; and here's the reason why:
I don't know, but I think I may be able to give you something to toss around, if you like.
The way I see it, is like this:
1. The Republican Party for the most part, is comprised of rich white people and others who's livelihood is centered around catering efforts and support for them.
2. Rich white people have their own agenda and are not sensitive to the ground roots (which is of interests of rich afro-americans for the most part) efforts that others make (which for the most part does exclude their Republican counterparts) that are designed to improve the quality of life for the masses.
3. Rich white Republicans want to stay that way, and therefore if they want what you have, they take it. Rich Afro-Americans can attest to that .
4.If a Democrat (afro-american or white) says the sky is blue, a republican will say the sky is red. Case in point, I don't like being lied to.
Does this help your elucidation? I hope so....comment back if you wish .
And you know my name? WHAT'S YOURS???????
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Comment by JA on June 29, 2009 at 9:57pm
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I am not a student of The History of American Politics. MCaesar
But this is the heart of the problem. History is not being taught correctly and why?? There is no sane reason why African Americans are all democrats; none that I have seen. Please elucidate me with the reasons why!
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Comment by michael w. caesar on June 28, 2009 at 10:37pm
- In response to JA, let me say this...I am not a student of The History of American Politics. I am speaking on the here and now. Of course, we all know that our first 'Black" State legislatures were elected by the Republican Party; but what has happened (chronologically) since then, I'll leave that to you. Their is alot to be said about what was accomplished by the Republican (as well as the Democratic) Party since then, and now no question. But what has happened over the past twenty-five or thirty years is what my writing is concerned about. If you want to talk that kind of history, you might would want to throw Slavery in the conversation, and therefore, venture to write your your BLOG, on the subject. This is just a suggestion.
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Comment by JA on June 28, 2009 at 6:36pm
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"They said the only problem with the miscount was in Florida. Why, because the guys brother was the governor of the State at the time."
You know it is time that you all drop the absurd hatred of the Republican party which gave you the right to vote in the first place and start writing the truth instead of these lies! This is the truth about the Florida voters: a second recount of Florida votes by the "Miami Herald" and a consortium of major news organizations confirmed that
Gore lost the election, and a ruling by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission declared that African Americans were not denied the right to vote!
NOW HERE IS SOME TRUTH ABOUT THE REPUBLICANS YOU WERE NOT TAUGHT IN COLLEGE!
the Republican Party that: (a) started as the anti-slavery party in 1854, (b) fought to free African Americans from slavery, (c) designed Reconstruction, a ten-year period of unprecedented political power for African Americans, (d) passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution granting African Americans freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote, (e) passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 granting African Americans protection from the Black Codes and prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, (f) passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 granting African Americans protection from the Jim Crow laws, (g) established Affirmative Action programs to help African Americans proper with Republican President Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan that set the first goals and timetables and his 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act that made Affirmative Action Programs the law of our nation, and (h) never sponsored or launched a program, passed laws, or engaged in practices that resulted in the death of millions of African Americans,
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Comment by Emma Lewis on June 28, 2009 at 7:38am -
This is absolutely outrageous. With a man with a black face in the white house!!
That is why they put him there, so they could quietly take away the few legal
rights we managed to get, through struggle and sweat. We must not allow this to happen!
Every neighbourhood should organize against this. This is the country that dares to tell
others about 'democracy"!!
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Comment by Ngone Aw on June 27, 2009 at 6:24pm
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With all due respect Brother Michael, we need to face the fact that we are not citizens, other than the illegal 14th amendment, passed under martial law quasi second class type. your article proves the point. "God bless the child who has his own," as long as we insist on being a part of our "Captors" society, we will never be a free people. We will continue to endure these assaults we will continue to go into debt to get an education, which benefits their socieites bottom line, and then beg "them' for jobs. America is finished, it is being foreclosed by the International Bankster's London based Cartel, and we are too if we do not wake up!
It is time for us to come of age, be responsible for our own destiny..
American Holocaust - Hidden History of The Great depression part 1 of 5
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Comment by michael w. caesar on June 24, 2009 at 7:45pm
- NO COMMENTS means you diidn't read this.....????????????
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