Voting rights ruling puts pressure on Democrats

Congressional Democrats are facing renewed pressure to pass legislation that would protect voting rights after a Supreme Court ruling yesterday made it harder to challenge Republican efforts to limit ballot access in many states.

The six-three ruling on a case out of Arizona was the second time in a decade that conservatives on the Supreme Court have weakened components of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark Civil Rights-era law. But this opinion was released in a much different political climate, in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s lie that last year’s election was stolen.

Republicans in states such as Georgia and Florida have used Trump’s falsehoods as justification for introducing voting restrictions under the guise of election integrity.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have already tried to respond with a sweeping voting and elections bill that Senate Republicans united to block last week. A separate bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore sections of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court previously weakened, has been similarly dismissed by most Republicans.

Those setbacks, combined with the Supreme Court’s decision, have fuelled a sense of urgency among Democrats to act while they still have narrow majorities in the House and Senate. But passing voting legislation would require changes to the filibuster, allowing Democrats to act without Republican support.

A group of moderate Democratic senators, including Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have ruled out revisions to the filibuster. In an evenly divided Senate, their rejection denies the votes needed to move forward with a procedural change.

Democrats condemned the Supreme Court decision.

“If you believe in open and fair democracy and the principle of one person, one vote, today is one of the darkest days in all of the Supreme Court’s history,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who supports the ruling, said: “States can be confident that they can go full speed ahead to strengthen elections and protect voting rights with security measures such as voter ID and other sensible measures to make it harder to steal elections.”