Critical Decision Time at the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court will hear two cases in the coming months that could set back the United States' standing as a modern democracy.  The right-wing activist judges on the court will have the opportunity to overturn both the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the federal campaign contribution limitations on individuals.  After Citizens United which did away with limits on corporate and labor union contributions, this additional one-two punch to our democracy would set us even further down the road to a plutocracy. 

The Voting Rights Act was one of the most palpable results of the civil rights movement of the late 1950's and early 1960's.  In her excellent analysis in yesterday's New York Times, Linda Greenhouse asks: "How can it be that one of the crowning achievements of the civil rights movement, a provision upheld on four previous occasions by the Supreme Court and re-enacted in 2006 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress (98-0 in the Senate, 390-33 in the House), a law that President George W. Bush urged the justices to uphold again four years ago in one of his final acts in office, a law that has demonstrably defeated myriad efforts both flagrant and subtle to suppress or dilute the African-American vote, is now hanging by a thread?" 

And what a thin thread that is.  In his opinion on an earlier Voting Rights Act case (2009) involving an election district in Austin, Texas, Chief Justice Roberts stated that "things have changed in the south".  Fortunately the Court did not at that time overturn Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  This time around, when the Court hears Shelby County, Alabama petition, we may not be so fortunate. 

Section 5, the pre-clearance provision, requires that the United States Department of Justice or a panel of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia "preclear" any attempt to change “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting..." in any "covered jurisdiction."  Covered jurisdictions are those with a history of past voting discrimination and in which less than 50% of the population was registered to vote in 1964.  Because of their Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, and the jury-rigged literacy tests with their so called "grandfather clauses", many Southern states require pre-clearance before they can change their voting laws.  Thing of the past, you say?  Just consider the voter suppression laws that numerous Republican-controlled states tried to enact this past election cycle.  Texas' voter suppression law was invalidated before the November election because it was not granted pre-clearance under the Voting Rights Act. 

The Voting Rights Act has done enormous good in allowing all citizens to exercise their right to vote with language that mirrors the 15th Amendment . That Amendment, ratified in 1870, provided that, "The right of U.S. citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Let's hope the current Supreme Court keeps it that way.

Alabama also plays a role in the case arguing against aggregate spending limits for individuals.  The case is brought by Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama man, and, surprise, surprise, the Republican National Committee. They argue that the current aggregate limits for a two-year cycle , $46,200 for contributions to candidates and $70,800 for contributions to groups, are too low.  As noted by Adam Liptik in the New York Times on February 19: "Should the court agree that those overall limits are unconstitutional, however, its decision could represent a fundamental reassessment of a basic distinction established in Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, which said contributions may be regulated more strictly than expenditures because of their potential for corruption."  Is there any hope at all that this Court, responsible for declaring corporations persons in Citizens United and for striking down campaign finance laws in Vermont (2006) and Montana (2012), will do the right thing for the democracy and prevent the further incursion of Big Money into the political process?

At a time when the influence of money in politics is so overwhelming that even common-sense gun control legislation is bottled up indefinitely in Congress, at a time when Republican governors and legislatures seem hell-bent on denying people their right to vote, the Supreme Court can strike a blow for democracy by holding the line on these two cases.  The Court either can do what is good for the country or it can agree with the right-wing ideologues that have dominated the political conversation for more than 30 years.  These cases will be a test of how far we've gone down the road to plutocracy and how far we've strayed from protecting citizens' right to vote.  I cannot say that I am hopeful.