#intent vs effects

[contemplatingoutlander]

John Roberts’s Dream Is Finally Coming True

The chief justice has been working to neuter the Voting Rights Act since the beginning of his career.

This is a gift 🎁 link (with no paywall) for this excellent article about how Roberts has been a leader in the attempt to neutralize the Voting Rights Act (VRA) since the early 1980s, and lied about his being a leader in his confirmation hearings for his appointment as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Here are some excerpts:

In 1982, when the Voting Rights Act was up for reauthorization, the Reagan Justice Department had a goal: preserve the VRA in name only, while rendering it unenforceable in practice. A young John Roberts was the architect of that campaign. He may soon get to finish what he started.

Last month, at the oral argument in "Louisiana v. Callais," a majority of the conservative justices seemed to signal their willingness to forbid any use of race data in redistricting. That could lead to the end of the VRA’s Section 2 protections for minority voters, and allow states across the South to redraw congressional districts currently represented by Black Democrats into whiter, more rural, and more conservative seats, potentially before the 2026 midterms. [...] When Roberts first arrived at DOJ in 1981, fresh off a clerkship for William Rehnquist at the Supreme Court, he was assigned two important portfolios: prepping Sandra Day O’Connor for her confirmation hearings and voting rights. O’Connor sailed through the Senate. The VRA would be more contentious: A 1980 Supreme Court decision in "City of Mobile v. Bolden" had required plaintiffs making a Section 2 claim to prove that lawmakers had racial-discrimination "intent. "That’s difficult to demonstrate, and it brought nearly all Section 2 litigation to a halt.

Civil-rights groups, Democrats, and moderate Republicans wanted to use the VRA reauthorization to override "Mobile" and clarify that Congress clearly meant to remedy all racially discriminatory "effects." The Reagan administration was divided. Moderate Reaganites did not want to battle over the landmark law, which was popular. Ideological conservatives within DOJ spoiled for a fight. They were content to extend the act, just so long as it was impossible to use. Roberts led the way.

See more under the cut about how Roberts lied about his leadership in the effort to neutralize the Voting Rights Act.

[...] More than two decades later, about to ascend to the high court, Roberts would brush aside concerns about his views on voting rights by suggesting that the 1982 fight was a youthful folly, and that he had just been doing his job. “Senator,” Roberts told Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, “you keep referring to what I supported and what I wanted to do. I was a 26-year-old staff lawyer. It was my first job as a lawyer after my clerkships. I was not shaping administration policy. The administration policy was shaped by the attorney general on whose staff I served. It was the policy of President Reagan. It was to extend the Voting Rights Act without change for the longest period in history at that point, and it was my job to promote the attorney general’s view and the president’s view on that issue. And that’s what I was doing.”

This was not entirely accurate. Once again, Roberts was masterfully playacting support for a law he worked to thwart. The effects standard came from DOJ. It was not originally the policy of President Reagan. It was not the president’s view. Roberts had done far more than what he claimed under oath. And when he and fellow young Reaganite Samuel Alito arrived at the Supreme Court, the arguments that had once lost in Congress would now carry the day—not because things had actually changed in the South, but because the arena moved to the judiciary.

Now John Roberts doesn’t need the president, 60 senators, or 218 representatives. Four like-minded conservatives on the Court would be enough. It appears there are five—plus Roberts himself.

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I don't know why Roberts is so obsessed with destroying the ability of the VRA to ensure that Blacks and other racial/ethnic minorities can have a reasonable chance to elect representatives of their choice. But the fact is that this Supreme Court chief justice apparently doesn't care that many red states are working hard to limit the ability of racial/ethnic minorities to cast meaningful vote. It's like he wants to go back to the bad old days before the Civil Rights movement.