Voting Rights Decision Called 'Old Poison Into New Bottles'

Supreme Court ruling strikes down most of what was left of the Voting Rights Act

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) denounced in the harshest terms a decision that the Supreme Court handed down Thursday which essentially gutted most of what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act.

The court's decision, while leaving some protections involving redistricting in place, left close to a dead letter the law once hailed as the most effective civil rights legislation in the nation's history.

The high court already began chipping away at the Voting Rights Act in a 2013 decision.

The decision Thursday, involving two Arizona laws, was one of the first flexes of the united 6-3 strong conservative majority, leaving the liberal minority in angry dissent.

At issue were two Arizona laws: one banned the collection of absentee ballots by anyone other than a relative or caregiver, and the other threw out any ballots cast in the wrong precinct. A federal appeals court struck down both provisions, ruling that they had an unequal impact on minority voters and that there was no evidence of fraud that would have justified their use.

But on Thursday, the Supreme Court reinstated the state laws, declaring that unequal impact on minorities in this context was relatively minor, that other states have similar laws and that states don't have to wait for fraud to occur before enacting laws to prevent it.

The decision is further invitation for the return of Jim Crow-style voting restrictions and suppression, according to DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison.

“Well, it was a gut punch. It was appalling. And I think what Justice [Elena] Kagan said in her dissent really crystallized what this is. She said that this was like pouring old poison into new bottles. We know what that old poison was. It’s Jim Crow. It’s, in essence, the reason why the Voting Rights Act was created in the first place,” Harrison said. “To stop racial discrimination, as it relates to voting. We, also, know that, you know, John Roberts has — since he was a young lawyer in the Reagan administration — has been focused on chipping away at the Voting Rights Act.”

The decision ought to, in response, motivate Americans to mobilize their fellow citizens to vote, Harrison said.

“But, John, you know, this is not a woe-is-me moment. This is a moment in which the American people have to stand up, and the American people have to take back the power that they wield,” he said during a TV interview. “You know, the most powerful people in this country aren’t sitting on the Supreme Court. They are not senators on the floor of the United States Senate or in the House. They’re not legislators in our districts. It’s the people in this country.

“We have to get folks registered in a way that we’ve never done before. We’ve got to get them mobilized, educate them on the issues, and have them flood the ballot boxes next November, November 2022, because the power belongs to the people in this country,” Harrison said.