Today Politico is out with an article under the headline: "Voting rights Act Under Siege!" If you read the first two paragraphs of the piece by reporter Josh Gerstein, you are told that conservatives Republicans are leading an "intensifying assault" on the Voting Rights Act. There is a problem with the article, however. It is false. There is no attack on the Voting Rights Act; no one is suggesting that the USA return to the types of practices outlawed by the act like poll taxes or literacy tests for voting. No one is suggesting that gerrymandering districts to prevent minority representation be allowed. Gerstein's basic premise is a blatant lie.
I was intrigued to see what proof Gerstein and Politico would offer to show the siege to which the act is being subjected. I waded through Gerstein's lengthy screed and found only two things. First, at a debate in South Carolina, Rick Perry said this: “I’m saying that the state of Texas is under assault by the federal government. I’m saying also that South Carolina is at war with this federal government and with this administration. If you look at what this Justice Department has done, not only have they taken [South Carolina] to task on voter ID, they’ve also taken them to task on their immigration law. When I’m the president of the United States, the states are going to have substantially more right to take care of their business. And not be forced by the EPA, or by the Justice Department for that matter, to do things that are against the will of the people.”
According to Gerstein and Politico, Perry's statement supporting the right of states to govern themselves with less interference from Washington is an aassault on the Voting Rights Act. To say the least, this is stretching Perry's words way beyond the breaking point.
The second item that Politico offers to prove its assertion is a statement by an "expert" that office holders are now more willing to oppose the law. This guy is some expert! Even Politico has to admit at the end of the article that not a single Congressman or Senator has stepped forward to oppose any portion of the Voting Rights Act. Not one!!!
Now it is true that there are pending lawsuits in federal court in which various localities challenge whether or not they must still be subject to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That section gave the Department of Justice the right to veto new districts, polling locations or voting times in certain states which, in 1965, we designated by Congress as those which had not had sufficient open access to their polls. In the principal case which comes from Alabama, the local government contends that things have changed. With everyone having free access to the polls, there is no rational basis any longer for the restrictions placed upon that government. This is hardly an assault on the Voting Rights Act. Indeed, it is an argument that the Act has done its intended purpose and remedied the problem it addressed.
So if there is no basis for saying that the Voting Rights Act is under siege by Republicans, why does Politico put this forward? Now we get back to the basic liberal media narrative. Republicans are racists; that is why they want to repeal the Voting Rights Act. Who cares if the truth is otherwise? Remember too, that Republicans represent only the rich and do not care about anyone else. Who cares that it is the Democrats who get more money from Wall Street. Who cares that it is the Democrats who use their time in office to pay off their wealthy supporters with goodies from the treasury. Just look at Solyndra or the other "green" energy programs that went to Obama's biggest fundraisers. The truth is that "green" energy refers more to the cash that went to Obama supporters and less to the clean nature of the failed energy projects.
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