Cherokee Tribune – Editorial: Voting Rights Supreme Court decision was overdue

First of all, let’s talk about what Tuesday’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act did not do.

It did not “gut” the act. Nor does it pave the way for a return to the era of poll taxes, voter intimidation and Jim Crow. Not even close, despite what court critics were quick to charge.

Rather, the court ruled 5-4 that certain states might still be required to get preclearance from the U.S. Justice Department for changes in their voting rules; but — and here’s the important part — the determination of which jurisdictions must do so must be made by Congress based on current data. Not demographic and other information from 40 years ago, when the law was passed. And not information from 1972, the last time it was updated.

For any Rip Van Winkles out there, this country has undergone dramatic changes in demographics and attitudes since 1965. One need look no further than the White House, to cite just one highly pertinent example.

Here’s another: There was a 63.2 percentage-point gap in 1965 between the white and black voter registration rates in one of the states in question, Mississippi. By 2004, blacks were 3.8 percentage points more likely to be registered in that state than whites.

As U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) aptly put it on Tuesday, “The South does not have the characteristics it did 60-something years ago.”

The federal government doesn’t base school funding on demographic data from 1965. Federal spending is not apportioned based on Census data from the mid-1960s. Secretary of State John Kerry is not basing his diplomacy on The Rand McNally 1965 Map of the World. So why should the Voting Rights Act be handcuffed to stale data?

via Cherokee Tribune – Voting Rights Supreme Court decision was overdue.