The GOP: Screw the Voting Rights Act

Lovely:

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans have concluded that it's not "necessary" to restore the portion of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said Wednesday.

The Supreme Court ruled in June 2013 that Section 4 of the landmark 1965 law, which required certain parts of the country with a history of minority voter suppression to clear changes to their voting laws with the federal government, was invalid. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that those regions were outdated and that Congress needed to re-designate which regions require special scrutiny.

"There are still very, very strong protections in the Voting Rights Act in the area that the Supreme Court ruled on, which is the question of whether or not certain states, there were, I think 11 states, all Southern states, that were required by law to seek pre-clearance of any changes in where polling places are located and other matters like that," Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

Ok, I know- legislation changes over time. Not every part of the 1965 law has to be maintained in it's original form, that is true. The inverse is true though too- you don't just get rid of that law for the hell of it. So in this case, you ask yourself, is Section 4 still needed? Well, no sooner than the day it was struck down, several states moved to disenfranchise people immediately through re-districting maps, voter ID laws, and other practices to deny easy voting.

So basically, if the idea is that it's good to make voting harder, yes, the states in question did that immediately. That's exactly what Section 4 was meant to stop. Since that's what happened after it was struck down, it's pretty clear that Section 4 is needed.