The Black Republican

The Wall Street Journal today takes aim at one of the last vestiges of institutional racism in America today - Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Some Republicans are taking comfort in the belief that the Section 5 provision may be unconstitutional at the end of the day. And it's certainly true that the Supreme Court hinted as much in decisions like Shaw v. Reno (1993), which held that a "reapportionment plan that includes in one district individuals who belong to the same race, but who are otherwise widely separated by geographical and political boundaries, and who have little in common with another but the color of their skins, bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid."

Ten years later, in Georgia v. Ashcroft, the High Court said, "the Voting Rights Act, as properly interpreted, should encourage the transition to a society where race no longer matters." The reauthorization would do the opposite.

Let's get something absolutely clear. The Voting Rights Act was absolutely necessary 40 years ago, and I've never heard of any other parts of the Act that are in any way a problem today. The bans on poll taxes and literacy tests are still absolutely necessary, and probably will be forever, because the tools used by racists were wrong to exclude the poor and the undereducated regardless of skin color, so even when racism is no longer an issue they will still be wrong. But with enshrinement of racial gerrymandering into federal law contrary to the 14th Amendment, it is doubtful Section 5 was ever constitutional.

The Journal suggests that reauthorization will happen without even a whisper to the contrary "unless Republican backbones miraculously stiffen", but this doesn't have anything to do with courage. If there was a great debate in America today about the problems with the Voting Rights Act, if there was an honest discussion about the blatant hypocrisy exhibited within the use, if not the actual text, of Section 5, we'd be talking about courage.

But there is no actual discussion going on. This is nothing but political expediency in the absence of any debate at all. And that's the real tragedy.