Justice Scalia has weighed in on the Justice Department’s refusal to protect white victims of discrimination under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Wall Street Journal has the story (paywall): Justice Scalia, speaking Monday night at the University of California Washington Center, elaborated on remarks he made in February during Supreme Court arguments over the act’s Section 5, which requires states and localities that historically discriminated against minority voters to obtain federal approval to change election procedures. Section 5 functions as a racial entitlement because the federal government doesn’t take a similar interest in protecting the voting rights of white people from racial discrimination, Justice Scalia said.
This is precisely what I wrote about here at PJ Media when the Department was reviewing redistricting in Noxubee County Mississippi. The plan was designed in part by a defendant in a Section 2 case who was found to have committed intentional racial discrimination. The defendant had professed his desire to draw district lines to exclude the white minority from all county supervisor seats. But this didn’t matter to the Voting Section. Indeed, AAG Tom Perez later confirmed to the Inspector General that he does not believe whites are protected by the Voting Rights Act.
The racialist chickens are coming home to roost.
Just imagine how much might have been avoided, including possibly the loss of Section 5, if blind ideology hadn’t governed the review of the Noxubee County redistricting proposal. Imagine how easy it might have been to interpose a purpose objection given that the person who helped draw the district lines had expressed explicit desire to ensure that no members of the white minority won office. One thing is for sure, Justice Scalia wouldn’t have been able to say what he said last night. And in June, you would have no chance of a concurring (or majority) opinion saying that Section 5 is unconstitutional because, in part, the Voting Section refuses to protect white victims of discrimination. Blind ideological zeal, in this case, may contribute to the demise of Section 5. By now, blind ideological zeal in in vouge in certain places.