Washington Post’s George Will: “Progressives are remarkably uninterested in progress.  . . .  Chief Justice John Roberts, noting that Massachusetts has the worst rate of white turnout compared with that of blacks, and that Mississippi has the best, asked Solicitor General Donald Verrilli: “Is it the government’s submission that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens of the North?” Verrilli said no. His answer was obviously false. Otherwise, the administration would favor extending Section 5 to the entire nation.”

Ouch.

Of course Robert’s question reminds me of a passage in Injustice about the actual attitudes of DOJ officials about whether the government thinks citizens in the South are more racist:

“Civil rights laws are no longer great moral levelers, providing equal opportunity and breaking down legal barriers. Instead, Ike Brown and his allies at the DOJ view civil rights laws as a system for redistributing wealth and power along racial lines. Voting Section visits to the deep South are seen by some as expeditions to alien territory. Anyone who questions this simplistic worldview must be a racist, if not an outright Klansman.”

The orginal draft of my book had much more detail on this point, in particular, one draft detailed a discussion between two Voting Section lawyers in Texas.  The conversation revealed the negative attitudes toward Texans by one of the Voting Section lawyers.  And yes, it was awfully obvious, that this “government [official’s] submission [was] that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens of the North.”