Political Quotes

“four years ago, a narrow majority of the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. That 5 to 4 decision crippled the Federal government's ability to protect minority, elderly, and disadvantaged voters across the country. The impact of this disastrous ruling has been even worse than imagined. Before the ink even dried on the Court's opinion, Republican officials in several States rushed to enact laws making it harder for minorities to vote. Prior to Shelby County, the Federal government had the ability to prevent racial discriminatory voting changes from taking effect before those changes occur. Proposed laws and new voting procedures would first have been reviewed by the Federal courts or the Department of Justice to ensure that voting rights would not be harmed if the changes went into effect. But without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act after Shelby County, discriminatory laws quickly passed Republican legislatures in several States. Chief Justice Roberts's majority opinion in Shelby County noted several times that the protections of the Voting Rights Act are no longer appropriate because our ``Country has changed.'' It is true that our Nation has changed--we have made progress. But there is no question that the scourge of racial discrimination still exists.…”