SCOTUS Tests Voting Rights: What's Left to Undermine?
The NYT frames this new case as a 'test' for the Voting Rights Act (VRA), as if the judiciary hasn't already hollowed it out. They conveniently omit the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, which eliminated the VRA's Section 5 preclearance requirement—a move Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously called 'like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.' That
decision opened the floodgates for states with histories of voter suppression to implement restrictive voting laws virtually unchecked. Post- Shelby , 14 states passed suppressive laws in just four years. So, when the Supreme Court 'tests' the VRA now, it's less a legal challenge and more like inspecting the damage after they’ve already taken a sledgehammer to the foundation. How many times can
one institution 'test' a law before it’s clear they're just looking for new ways to break it? One might wonder if the real 'test' is how much more voter suppression the public will tolerate before seeing this cycle for what it is.