Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 imposed a special coverage formula on jurisdictions with particularly bad histories of racial discrimination in voting, including nine states—Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia—and dozens of county and municipal governments, including the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Section 5 authorized the Justice Department to require “pre-clearance” of proposed changes in electoral laws in these jurisdictions. The pre-clearance requirement has been used in recent years to thwart attempts by the ethnocentric non-Hispanic White Right to engage in voter ID laws or redistricting plans that were evidently motivated by the desire to indirectly eliminate or dilute the votes of nonwhite citizens or poor citizens.

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On Tuesday, a 5-4 decision struck down Section 4 of VRA, which determines which states are covered by Section 5, and which are not – meaning certain areas of the U.S. which previously had to submit changes to their voting rules to the Department of Justice for approval, now can pass laws without it. (However, that doesn't mean people won't be watching, so expect more lawsuits in the wake of new voter ID requirements, registration rules and reapportionment, among other voting issues.)

In writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts said, "[racial] conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions." The crux of his opinion was that the coverage formula used in Section 4 to identify these conditions was 50 years out of date. Therefore, Justice Roberts lobbed a pass to Congress to develop a coverage formula using contemporary data.

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"In fairness, I doubt that will ever happen," Corker told the Huffington Post. "I just cannot imagine -- I'm just being honest -- Congress ever coming to terms with what they could agree on."

"In essence, what I guess would be occurring ... [would be] one group of folks would have to be saying another group of folks have some tendencies in a direction that are not good," Corker continued. "I don't know that in 2013 I see that happening."

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that Section 4 of the VRA is unconstitutional. This part of the law creates a formula to determine which areas of the country, with a history of racial discrimination at the polls, are subject to Section 5 of the law, which requires those areas to get pre-clearance from the Department of Justice before making changes to their voting laws. In its decision, the Supreme Court said that Congress could come up with a new formula to determine which areas need to get pre-clearance, but until then Section 5 is inoperable.

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Later this morning, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decisions in the key marriage equality cases. After yesterday’s performance by the Court, we can no longer be surprised by historically bad jurisprudence.

The voting rights ruling it issued yesterday, Shelby County v. Holder, is one of the very worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. Leaving aside the practical effects of the Court’s holding, which are likely to be awful (Texas has already won the race for “first state to enact a change to its voting laws that wouldn’t have been approved by the federal government if the Voting Rights Act could still be enforced”), the opinion is a travesty as a matter of basic legal reasoning.

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Like Lauren, most Americans just want to enjoy life and get ahead. But her reasonable and innocuous fears over her future are being hijacked by conservatives to stoke larger fears: that there is a finite ability for us all to thrive together. The George Zimmerman trial, the overturning of the Voting Rights Act, Paula Dean's flare up, angry debates over citizenship in immigration reform: This week, we’re seeing any idealist’s hope of a post-racial future disappear the way of the floppy disk.

The Supreme Court just punted a decision on affirmative action, but it cannot indefinitely forestall the bracing questions driving many people’s interest in the practice. By a 7 to 1 decision, the Court allowed affirmative action to survive in college admissions, but imposed a tough legal standard on schools—“strict scrutiny”—that the policy’s long-term viability has been neutered.

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In the majority opinion for the case, called Shelby County v. Holder, Chief Justice John Roberts made it clear that the Court's ruling would not affect the nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting laid out in Section 2 of the VRA, but only the VRA's preclearance requirement. He also specified that the court was not ruling on the constitutionality of Section 5, the part of the VRA that requires those parts of the country covered by Section 4's formula to get preclearance before making changes to their voting regulations. The ruling is limited to Section 4, which simply lays out the formula that determines which specific areas are required to get that preclearance. Of course, without the Section 4 formula, Section 5 is effectively inoperable for the time being, because it has no application to any particular state. As a remedy, the Court noted that Congress could "draft another formula based on current conditions," but there will likely be big political hurdles to overcome for that to happen.

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This raises a fascinating question. How would Cruz himself go about providing “documentary evidence” of his own citizenship?

As it happens, he was born in Canada, where his parents were working at the time. Thus, his birth certificate cannot provide any such proof. And because he claims citizenship by birth, he would never have had any reason to obtain a certificate of naturalization. According to Cruz’s official website, however, his mother was born and raised in Delaware, which is quite sufficient under the law to confer citizenship on Ted – if we take his word for it. On the other hand, what if we demanded the fabled documentary evidence?

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"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the federal 'motor voter' law preempts Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration," he explained on his Facebook page. "This hole in federal statutory law allows non-citizens to register and thereby encourages voter fraud. I will file a commonsense amendment to the immigration bill that permits states to require I.D. before registering voters."

The Supreme Court found 7-2 that the law, which the state passed in 2004, is pre-empted by a federal law that provides voters with a form for registration and requires states to “accept and use” the form.

The New York Times explains:

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“I’m going to be real honest with you,” Emanuelson said in May at an event for the Dallas County GOP. “The Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they are going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.”

The Dallas Morning News reports that Emanuelson backtracked on his remarks in a statement:

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The Associated Press reports:

It's the latest -- and most substantial -- development in a nationwide Democratic Party effort to strike back at two years of Republican success in passing measures to require identification at polling places and purge rolls of suspect voters.

Democratic-controlled states like California, Connecticut and Maryland also all have sought to make it easier to cast a ballot as late as possible. They recently passed versions of same-day voter registration measures, which traditionally help younger and poorer voters -- the sort who lean Democratic.

Colorado is the 11th state to allow same-day registration, according to the AP.

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"I support responsible and cost-efficient election reform that increases voter participation because democracy works best when the most people vote," he said of the veto. "But this bill risks the integrity and orderly administration of our elections by introducing a new voting method and process."

From the Star-Ledger:

Christie, who is seeking re-election, raised the ire of unions and the Democratic Governors Association, who are backing his likely opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex).

"The governor’s veto shamefully silences the voices of an untold number of New Jersey families," New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech said. The Democratic Governors Association immediately issued a statement likening Christie to what it called "shameless Republican governors restricting voting rights for partisan political gain," citing Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and others.

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Up until today, you might have been able to write all that anti-democratic pathology off as one infecting only the Republican Party's politicians and institutional leadership, but not its rank-and-file voters. But then this morning Fairleigh Dickinson University released this gun control-related pollshowing that authoritarianism runs throughout the the entire party.

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Both the state House and Senate are controlled by Republicans. The House voted 52-45 to override the veto, which had earlier passed in the state Senate by a margin of 21-12.

From the Associated Press:

While Arkansas poll workers must ask for identification under current law, voters don't have to show it to cast a ballot. Under the new law, voters who don't show photo identification can cast provisional ballots. Those ballots would be counted only if voters provide ID to county election officials or, before noon on the Monday following an election, sign an affidavit stating they are indigent or have a religious objection to being photographed.

Beebe had called the bill "an expensive solution in search of a problem," but accepted the override of his veto. "He made his case as to why he thought it wasn't going to be good for Arkansas, but they have the final say and they've had that say," Beebe's spokesman, Matt DeCample, told the AP following the vote.

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At least that’s the lesson of Edward Blum, a conservative legal activist who, despite lacking formal legal education, has successfully pushed 14 cases to the nation’s highest court. Of the nearly 9,000 cased filed with the court last year, just 79 got oral arguments. Blum got two of them, and they’re both among the most-watched cases currently before the justices.

One, Shelby County v. Holder, could gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The other, Fisher v. University of Texas, could outlaw affirmative action in college admissions and possibly elsewhere. Progressive legal activists and civil rights groups have sounded the alarm, putting both cases at the top of their agendas and warning that a bad decision could undermine decades of protections for minorities.

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"I think we should see what they did and I think we should, if possible, figure out a way to fix the Supreme Court's objections," Sensenbrenner, who represents Wisconsin, said at CPAC. "The Voting Rights Act has been, I think, the most effective of all of the civil rights laws. It enfranchised all minorities in the south, and that includes both African Americans and Republicans."

He added: "If you look at what happened after Section 5 was amended in 1982, the number of African-American and Republican representatives in Congress and in state legislatures has gone way up."

When asked if Republicans have the political will to act if the VRA is struck down, Sensenbrenner told Salon: "I'm gonna make them fix it."

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Every year, as February turns to March, thousands return to Selma, Ala., to commemorate the moment President Lyndon Johnson later compared to Lexington and Concord, calling it “a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom.” But few know that this important event was the result of a series of accidents and almost did not occur. More important, it suggests that change in America is not inevitable and comes only when determined people risk their lives to achieve it.

On Sunday, March 7, 1965, peaceful demonstrators attempting to cross Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge were attacked by Alabama State troopers armed with bats, electric cattle prods and tear gas. “I’m going to die here,” thought John Lewis, one of the march’s leaders, as he fell to the ground, concussed by a trooper’s bat.

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From the AP:

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported Tuesday that the two ex-employees were charged with a third degree felony. But prosecutors back in January decided to place both of them on probation because neither has a criminal history.

Strategic Allied Consulting was hired by Republicans to do voter registration drives in Florida and other states. But last fall, the state party fired the company and took the additional step of filing an election fraud complaint against the company with state officials.

Rebekah Joy Paul submitted 20 fake voter registration applications, according to the FDLE, while Christian Davis Price submitted seven. Both alleged that they were told they would not get paid unless they submitted a certain number of applications, and Paul alleges that she was instructed not to register Democrats.

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The justices did not comment Monday in rejecting an appeal of lower court decisions that left the order in place at least until 2017.

The order stems from a lawsuit filed by Democrats in New Jersey in 1981 that objected to a "ballot security" program the RNC ran in minority neighborhoods.

Republicans said the order hampers efforts to combat voter fraud, but U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise said voter intimidation remains a threat and preventing it outweighs the potential danger of fraud.

The court action is unrelated to legal challenges to Republican-inspired voter identification laws in the 2012 campaign.

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