Giving the Game Away

Torture advocate John Yoo, celebrating the end of the Voting Rights Act:

The Voting Rights Act resulted in an alliance between the NAACP and the Republican party of the 1980s and 1990s to pack minorities into voting districts. This had the effect of ensuring that minorities would be elected to Congress (which the NAACP liked), but diluted minority influence in regular politics by reducing their numbers in all other voting districts (which the Republican party liked). The end of the Voting Rights Act might have the long-term effect of making more congressional seats in the South more competitive and reducing the number of safe seats for members of the congressional black caucus.

Well, that's a candid admission of past practice, at any rate.

Here's an empirical analysis demonstrating that, contrary to the Court's decision, Congress had ample evidence supporting the formula. Remember Congress only had to have a rational basis to re-enact the statute because the VRA is enacted pursuant to an explicit constitutional provision--one that does not have an expiration date.

And how have the jurisdictions previously covered by the VRA pre-clearance requirements reacted to the decision? By immediately reviving voter suppression laws halted by the DOJ and courts under the VRA, of course.

How edifying. If you're John Yoo, that is. After all, he believes that the government has the power torture children, but not to implement a constitutional provision authorizing it to safeguard the right to vote.