Page 19 - Preclearance News Today

Point to where people would think they would have to do anything. who would do anything as outrageous as were seeing after the 2020 elections. >> to remind the audience, because you and i are a little too read in on this. >> okay. >> so you had john roberts lead a 5-4 court majority, a narrow majority, as they say, saying there is no more need for preclearance of specific states as provided in the voting rights act. one of those states was arizona. instead he said that the legislature should cra...

Within inches of his life. are you going to be on the side of those with dogs and fire hoses? you cant be against the voting rights act without desecrating the martyrs who fought for it unless youre john roberts. the conservative unelected chief justice of the supreme court. he doesnt have to have any voters vote for him, right? a lifetime appointment. in 2019 they invented a new principle to gut the voting rights act called preclearance. it had discriminatory voting practices. roberts could do ...

They are recognizing that that both of them are part of the process. >> what do you expect to be done in congress. we saw the defeat of hr 1. what about hr 4, the john lewis bill? >> it is very important. it is the subject of the court decision, and senator manchin about the possibility of building a bipartisan consensus around the john lewis voting rights act coupled with other measures. so well have to see how that develops, that conversation is ongoing. >> in 2013 the shelby decision in the s...

Decision today in section 2 rather than what we call the preclearance which was basically section 4, the civil rights act, preclearance 5 but 4 is where the formula was and so we have not submitted legislation yet in this congress on that question so i think its a little bit different, though i agree that what the court did here was do the section 2, what will lead, i think to more onerous burdens on people of -- lets say lesser means because what were talking about here is people who move and t...

Section 5 required jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get preclearance. that was knocked down. after that, it became easier for jurisdictions to put in restrictive laws. arizona is the best example of this. they had one of these two that was at issue here, they tried to put it in place in 2011. the justice department asked them for more information. they withdrew it. shelby county is decided in 2013 and now its in place and now its the law. because of this big law, and this notion...

And possibly putting all 50 states in the preclearance -- under the preclearance umbrella and its eight years later. why hasnt hr-4, the voting rights act been issue 1 politically it feels as if hr-1 and s-1 have sort of diluted something that could be used right now to deal with whats happening in the state legislatures. >> well, when it comes to hr-4 youre absolutely correct and the reason is its only now that so many states are demonstrating that it has preclearance. 48 states have passed som...

Legislation, because the for the people act, what it does is it gives a national start. will youre in idaho or alabama, you can have absentee ballot voting, no-excuse absentee ballot voting, and some of the issues that have led to the abuse of power. and the john lewis act, it was the eighth anniversary of the shelby versus holder decision, and that decision ripped out section five. so having the john lewis voter rights act will actually restore, creates a new formula and stores some of the expa...

From getting clearance. its called preclearance, before they change their rules any further, and that ruling in the supreme court kind of pulled out what many would consider the teeth of the voting rights act. before i have to let you go, what would you make of this possible compromise? it seems like there might be some kind of a plan that got joe manchins approval. do you have hope for a compromise in congress if, lets say, these two pieces of legislation dont pass as they are currently written...

Saying this violates is currently being considered by the supreme court and it could be weakened, the protections that it typically offered previously could be weakened in a ruling as soon as monday. so i think this is because they know they have a high bar to do this in part because as he said in his own press conference, merrick garland, pre clearance, section 5 of the voting rights act is no longer something they can use as a vehicle to stop discriminatory legislation in their view. >> how co...

Back before this roberts court decision in shelby county. the way it worked was states had to tell the department of justice what they wanted to do. and then, the department of justice had to approve it. preclearance is what it was called. without the formula that allows the doj to decide which states and which counties to apply preclearance to, it all basically fell apart. so now, they are relying on section two. which flips the burdens. which basically says that the department of justice, or w...