The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was enacted to protect the voting rights of minorities, has been dismantled.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court reopened the door to voter discrimination by voting 5-4 to strike down key parts of the law as unconstitutional, forcing congress to revise the law and make it constitutional in the opinion of the justices.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the justices chose to strike the Voting Rights Act because “our country has changed” for the better. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy the problem speaks to the current conditions,” he added.
But Civil Rights icon John Lewis, who was born to sharecroppers in 1940, marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960’s and went on to become a congressmen representing the State of Georgia, disagreed with Roberts, saying the decision of the Supreme Court “stuck a dagger into the heart of the Voting Rights Act.”
 |
| Rep. John Lewis |
“These men never stood in unmovable lines,” Lewis said of the justices. “They were never denied the right to participate in the democratic process. They were never beaten, jailed, run off their farms or fired from their jobs. No one they knew died simply trying to register to vote. They are not the victims of gerrymandering or contemporary unjust schemes to maneuver them out of their constitutional rights.”
President Obama called Tuesday’s ruling as a “setback,” vowing that his “administration will continue to do everything in its power to ensure a fair and equal voting process.”
