Imagine you are getting ready to vote in an election – any election—and you are refused your right to cast the ballot. In certain states, minority voters are denied the right to cast a ballot. And it wasn’t that long ago that minority voters were met with violence when they tried to cast their ballot. Hence the Voting Rights Act.
Since 2013, not that long ago, courts have been emasculating the VRA. Beginning with the Shelby case that required preclearance for certain changes, the Supreme Court held that, goodness gracious, everyone just knows there’s no discrimination in the South. There’s an eight-letter euphemism for nonsense to describe that.
Now courts are denying what’s called the private right of action, which means if you face denial of our right to vote, you cannot sue to have that right restored. You have to get the government, possibly the one that denied you, to bring the suit. Just what the entrenched and moneyed interests want to maintain power.
Prayer for the Day
It’s easy, O Lord, to turn our eyes away,
For we think, “this doesn’t affect me” – for now;
We think where we live, we don’t have those problems,
But, like the fog, restrictions slip in slowly, imperceptibly.
Open our eyes, O God, to warning signs around us,
For it’s too easy to think we are different.
In the name of the One who challenged injustice,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Private plaintiffs bringing cases under section two [of the Voting Rights Act] has been one of the hallmark ways to protect voting rights in this country.
Jonathan Topaz, a staff attorney for the ACLU Voting Rights Project
If you’re challenging 1,000 voters at once, you are not bringing the sophistication required when you are handling someone’s constitutional right.
Michael Siegrist, the clerk of Canton Township, Michigan
Is this not the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice,
To undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free,
And to break every yoke?
Isaiah 58:6