Black Conservatives Tell Supreme Court: Race Not the Issue in Voting Rights Case
3 Mar 2021
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard arguments Tuesday on the legal challenge to two voting laws in Arizona that challengers claim discriminate against racial minorities. But Project 21, a black leadership network, issued remarks to the press warning that race is not the issue in the case.
According to the SCOTUS website, the issues before the court are:
(1) Whether Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy, which does not count provisional ballots cast in person on Election Day outside of the voter’s designated precinct, violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act; and (2) whether Arizona’s ballot-collection law, which permits only certain persons (i.e., family and household members, caregivers, mail carriers and elections officials) to handle another person’s completed early ballot, violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or the 15th Amendment.
Attorney General Mark Brnovich is asking the High Court to uphold Arizona’s laws on ballot harvesting and out-of-precinct voting. According to a news release, in 2016, the DNC challenged those laws, and a federal district court judge ruled in favor of Arizona.
Updated
Mar 02, 2021
U.S. Supreme Court Leans Toward Upholding Voter Restrictions
The case comes as Republicans in some states are pursuing new restrictions after Trump made false claims of widespread voter fraud.
Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared inclined to uphold two Republican-backed voting restrictions in Arizona in a case that could further hobble the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal law that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
During nearly two hours of oral arguments by teleconference the court’s conservative justices, who hold a 6-3 majority, asked questions indicating they could issue a ruling that would make it harder to prove violations of the Voting Right Act.
Thomas staked out his Trumpian position in a dissent from the Supreme Court’s dismissal of two election-related lawsuits in Pennsylvania. Republicans in Pennsylvania had asked the Supreme Court to answer a recurring question that plagued the 2020 election: Does the United States Constitution permit the members of a state legislature, acting as a gang of elected lawmakers unconstrained by the state’s own constitution, to seize control of a presidential election by naming their own slate of electors to replace those chosen by the votes of the state’s people?
The answer to that crucial question depends in part on parsing Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes that presidential electors are appointed “in such Manner as the Legislature [of the State] may direct.” Some maintain that, by vesting the power to choose electors in state “Legislature[s],” the Constitution has designated a free-range bunch of state representatives to meet wherever they like and do w