Here it is only Wednesday and already in my opinion the Republican Party is have a bad week. I would go so far as to say even their victories will turn out to be Pyrrhic ones.
DOMA – I fully support the Supreme Courts call that this law was unconstitutional, but for many republican candidates this is a lost that will haunt. They will be asked about this in interviews and in debates and their only option to stand with the social conservative base and blast the ruling. This is bad for them because even if they wanted the issue to just go away it will not and public opinion is swinging more and more against them on this one. The Social Conservative base will not allow heresy on this but as time passes this will be more and more an election killer.
Prop 8 – This one went against the Republicans on a technicality, but a critical one. It will very difficult to find people with standing to fight for marriage exclusion laws and with out standing marriage equality is a reality in California. California Republicans are in a worse shape than national ones with DOMA. If they ignore it they’ll be eviscerated in the primaries, and if that bash the ruling they can give up any dream of winning a statewide election.
Texas Abortion Legislation – here the new channels of communications are making a real difference. Social media took what would have been a back page story, told only in the past tense, and mobilized people across the country for a regional issue. I believe that social media, used primarily by the younger voters, is going to change the character of off-year elections, that is trouble for the Republican Party. The Republicans typically do better in lower turn-out elections and the Democratic Part typically does better with a high turn out, this is a factor in the 2010 results. (Though it must be said that district boundaries and population dispersal are greater factors.) This is a story that will get repeated and it will grow in the re-telling. I’m going to be very interested in how the off year election in 2014 go.
Voting Rights Act – Plenty of people on the left are describing yesterday Supreme Court decision as ‘gutting’ the Voting rights Act, but that is hyperbole. Yesterday’s decision did not legalize poll taxes, literacy test, or anything of the like. The decision turned on two section of the law, Section 5, which stated that some states and localities must seek approval from the Department of Justice before enacting any changes to their election laws. (Nearly all these area effected are in the South.) and Section 4 which set forth a formula for determining when a jurisdiction was no longer governed by section 5. The court did not overturn Section 5, but rather tossed out the currently formula used in Section 4 on the basis it was originally composed over 40 years ago the conditions had changed too much for it to be fairly applicable. (Sounds a bit like a living document interpretation to me, if the constitution did not change, and this was right when it was enacted how could it be unconstitutional now? But that’s a different aspect than the one I want to examine.) So in effect the Court said, write a new formula. Now the House is controlled by the Republicans and is unlikely to take up writing a new formula, but the Senate is a different matter. Senator Reid is likely to have the senate take up that duty, and then what happens? Do they Republicans filibuster a new Voting Rights Acts? (really it’s just a new formula, but the simplistic way to state it in headlines is voting rights.) They’d be crucified in the press, they might as well filibuster chocolate and puppies. Then the bill goes to the House and repeats the process. If Reid waits until next year to do this it is an election issue to galvanize the young and vilify the Republicans. If the Republicans roll over, then they face a rebellion from Southern conservative who will see this as their issues being tossed under the bus by RINOs.
No, I do not think this has been a kind week to the Republicans, but it has been one of their own devising.
I don’t think you are right. from the link you posted
“In 1970, Congress recognized the continuing need for the special provisions of the Act, which were due to expire that year, and renewed them for another five years. It added a second prong to the coverage formula, identical to the original formula except that it referenced November 1968 as the relevant date for the maintenance of a test or device and the levels of voter registration and electoral participation.”
and then
“As before, Congress expanded the coverage formula, based on the presence of tests or devices and levels of voter registration and participation as of November 1972. In addition, the 1965 definition of “test or device” was expanded”
and finally
In 1982, the coverage formula was extended again, this time for 25 years, but no changes were made to it. In 2006, the coverage formula was again extended for 25 years. Section 4, along with those other sections that are dependent upon it, such as Section 5 and 8, will expire in 2031.”
So the data set had been altered from 1964, up to 1972, and after that the reauthorization was a political non act. (98-0 on the last senate vote) There’s nothing from stopping the congress from updating the formula again, who that updated formula would effect is another matter.
I saw this front page story on Los Angeles Times. I’m not the only one worried about what the court’s ruling on Prop 8 means for the referendum power in California.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/27/local/la-me-gay-marriage-initiatives-20130628
“SACRAMENTO — Activists on both sides of the bitter fight over same-sex marriage managed to agree on one thing in the wake of Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The justices, they said, set a worrisome precedent by giving elected officials undue power over ballot initiatives.
The court essentially voided Proposition 8, a measure placed on the state ballot by foes of gay marriage and passed by voters in 2008. The justices said supporters of the initiative had no standing to defend the measure after state leaders — who opposed the law — had refused to do so.”
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/misc/sec_4.php
As you can see from reading the link, it was not just a formula that section 4 contained, but data from 1964. There was never any provision for changing the data. Probably because those who wrote the legislation never anticipated it’s continued use in unamended form 50 years into the future! Naturally such a law was going to be unfair and unconstitutional once enough time had passed to render the 1964 data irrelevant.
The problem is the Congress can’t squeeze that toothpaste back into the tube. Any new law which arbitrarily forces those states back into pre-clearance status would be as unconstitutional as the parts of section 4 of the Voting Rights Act which the Supreme Court just overturned.
As I said there is no legal justification to undo what the Supreme Court has just done.
If a new VRA using the same section 4 formula from 1965, but using data from 2013 is enacted, odds are no area of the nation will fall under pre-clearance status, let alone ALL of the areas that used to fall under the original 1965 VRA. A new VRA would be pointless, as it wouldn’t do anything more than the current VRA does.
SCOTUS did not strike the whole law, that did not even strike section 5 which is the section on pre-clearance, what they struck was section 4 the formula that determines which states are subject to pre-clearance. Roberts in his opinion stated that the formula is too old to be applicable to the current situation. (Which sounds very dodgy to me) Congress can pass a new formula and pre-clearance is back. The Democrats control the senate and can bring up a new formula calling it the VRA of 2014 forcing the Republicans to go along or to filibuster Voting rights.
Exactly what do you think could be done with a “VRA 2014”? Put the same list of States back into pre-clearance status? Under what legal justification?
That’s kind of what I thought you meant. People are acting like poll taxes are suddenly legal again, they are not. What it does mean is that, for the moment, instead of pre-clearance, states will enact changes and they will be challenged in the courts. That is until the Senate starts work on the VRA of 2014 and puts the Republicans in a corner…
D’oh! I meant to say Voting Rights Act in that last sentence and not DOMA. That will teach me not to post when tired.
Prop 8
I voted against Prop 8, but the method by which the Democrats have overturned Prop 8 leave me more pessimistic than ever about the future of California.
It looks like the Democrats have finally found a sure fire way to nullify California propositions that are voted into power by the people. And the litigation against Prop 8 has shown the way.
All Democratic opponents to a particular proposition have to do now is forum shop to find a Federal court who will give them a favorable ruling. Then when the time comes to appeal the decision to a higher court, the State Attorney General will simply refuse (despite that being dereliction of duty) to appeal and the opponents of the proposition thereby win the case. The people of the State are powerless now, because the Supreme Court has ruled they have no standing in court to defend a Proposition, as only officials of the State Government have standing to defend the laws of California.
Despite successes in passing some recent propositions, in general the Democratic party has hated the referendum process in California and such propositions as Prop 13, Prop 187, and Prop 8. In fact the Democrats have attempted to gut the proposition power in recent years with little success, but now they have finally found a way to short-circuit the power of direct democracy in California.
Voting Rights Act
The yellow press in their hysterical coverage of DOMA are needlessly provoking some of the public. Despite whatever partisan advantage they might hope to gain from such irresponsible reporting, the yellow press are adding to a deadly toxic stew of resentment which may blow up this June. And the yellow press will be largely to blame if it does.
I have been following the Zimmerman trial in Florida closely, which began this week. The local blogger http://legalinsurrection.com/ has been doing an excellent job following the trial and giving a daily rundown and analysis of the proceedings. And so far the case is following the path I expected, which means an acquittal of Zimmerman of all charges in the death of Martin.
The yellow press outrageous coverage of the death of Martin (some early reporting even included blatantly false information) has already increased anger in the Black community to dangerous levels. The stupidly false spin by the yellow press on DOMA only makes things even worse.