Courtesy of CREDO. Thanks, guys!
The Supreme Court votes Friday on the fate of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important and successful civil rights laws in our nation's history. In oral arguments this week, Justice Scalia spoke contemptuously about this legislation calling it the "perpetuation of racial entitlement" to audible gasps in the usually staid chamber. He went on to argue that Congress would essentially be incapable of rolling back the law, intimating that it was then up to the Supreme Court to throw it out and essentially usurp the legislative role.
Justice Scalia has a long history of acting as a self-appointed legislator from the bench, promoting his political agenda rather than focusing on interpreting the Constitution. But Chief Justice Roberts on the other hand, while he also expressed skepticism about the Voting Rights Act, has always been clear on his court's role to defer to Congress when it comes to the democratic process and the making of laws.
In an editorial titled "Justice Scalia's Contempt of Congress" the Washington Post editorial board, which is known for its conservative bent, outlined what it called Justice Scalia's "stunning line of argumentation":
Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that the continuation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act represented the "perpetuation of racial entitlement," saying that lawmakers had only voted to renew the act in 2006 because there wasn't anything to be gained politically from voting against it.
"Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes," Scalia said during oral argument in Shelby County v. Holder.
"Even the name of it is wonderful, the Voting Rights Act. Who's going to vote against that?" Scalia wondered. He said that the Voting Rights Act had effectively created "black districts by law."
The Washington Post editorial concluded, "Congress is empowered to write legislation enforcing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. But if Justice Scalia doubts the purity of lawmakers' motives, then apparently this power is limited."
Following the oral arguments, Pete Williams of NBC News concluded, "I think it's safe to say there are five votes to strike down either one or both parts of the Voting Rights Act." Chief Justice Roberts showed by his vote against overturning President Obama's Affordable Care Act in an election year that he is sensitive to public perception of overreach by the Supreme Court.
If you agree Scalia has gone too far, please sign petition at http://act.credoaction.com/...
{My reaction below the golden veto.}
Frickin' unbelievable. That Voting Rights Act is the "perpetuation of racial entitlement"?!! VOTING, the bedrock of a democratic republic, is an entitlement?!? Whoa! And I love the Scalia Theory of Legal Reasoning, which really should be studied both in law schools and schools of theology. In the Scalia Theory of Legal Reasoning the ultimate trump card is not original text, nor original meaning, nor writer(s)' intent, nor political/historical context, nor explicit motives. The ultimate trump is that the law in question has gone through "the normal political processes." God help anyone trying to specify what constitutes a political process, much less a "normal" one. By Scalia Legal Reasoning, every law and every Constitution Amendment (13th, 14th, 15th) passed during the Civil War would be unscaliaconstitutional. Normal political processes, my ass; like Bush v. Gore?
Scalia takes a very dim view on voting, by Congress as well as citizens. He tried to make the absurd argument that Congress’s renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 by votes of 98 to 0 in the Senate and 390 to 33 in the House did not mean that Congress actually supported the act! Scalia, assuming powers of clairvoyance, argued that the lawmakers were secretly afraid to vote against this “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Someone should start cranking out the bumper stickers now: "Scalia: Clairvoyance, the Latest in Legal Reasoning."
This is the first time I've seriously considered impeaching the holy bishop of D.C. Scalia Legal Reasoning is the codification of what Scalia has been doing all along: reason anyway you like just as long as you arrive safe and sound at your predetermined legal destination. Of course virtually every reason Scalia gives for overturning the Voting Rights Act could also be used to overturn any law that prohibits gun violence control, but overturning gun violence control isn't a destination Scalia wants to reach. SLR isn't close to judicial anarchy; it IS judicial anarchy. Scalia should start dangling teabags around the soft edge of his goofy "justice hat." Maybe Mrs. Justice Thomas could sew them on for him, or perhaps agree to dangle there herself (calling all political cartoonists!). As Pete Williams implied not long after Scalia's jaw-dropper, the only thing between us and this judicial anarchy is Chief Justice Roberts. Here's hoping Roberts likes a very, very strong cup of coffee.