Racial Entitlements. Such As the Right to Vote.
Justice Scalia provided the most jarring comment throughout the lengthened argument. Belittling the government argument that the reenacted law was passed by a unanimous vote in the Senate, Scalia set off in a lengthy counter-argument, saying that made no difference because members of Congress would not take the political risk of undoing what he called “racial entitlements.” (Outside the Court, the reaction from civil rights organizations was swift, and heartily condemning, as they defended a law that everyone acknowledges is a great monument in the civil rights struggle.)
Scalia’s comment, aside from its harshness, was obviously made to add emphasis to his argument that, while the law might well have been entirely justified at one time, it was no longer.
— Lyle Denniston, SCOTUSblog, reporting on the oral argument today at the Supreme Court in a case challenging the continued constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
My, my. So Justice Scalia doesn’t like racial entitlements–such as the one conferring the right of members of certain races to vote, and to have their vote count as much as the votes of people of other races who have racial entitlements. What a surprise.
Hmm. And to think that I had thought that the right to vote was a constitutional entitlement, not a racial one. Good thing I’m not a supreme court justice.
well, it’s a good thing the Supreme Court only interprets the law, not makes it.
Of course if the Congress is too politically cowardly to vote against “racial entitlements”, it’s up to the Supreme Court to interpret what they “meant.”
Just confused. Of the existing entitlements, which ones would be considered “racial entitlements” with a straight and serious face? (Not with a Scalia club smirk.)
I wish all these old and recently illiterate, such as Scalia (and many more that can’t keep up), would just fade into the barely remembered distant past.
We are going to find later on that Scalia, has been slowly loosing his mind. Unlike Reagan, Scalia will be one of those who become more miserable.
Scalia and his buddies on the court are accepting a common theme of conservatives across the South and in rural America where the burden of being compliant with the law is now something of the past. By admission, they are claiming that racism no longer exists institutionally or politically because they affirm it. There is no other justification for their claims other than political ideology. Scalia is not an expert on election fraud, voter caging, redistricting, race relations, culture, history or any other measure which would lend him to be an expert in the subject matter. He accepts the fact that this remedy was useful at one time but that it has miraculously run its course and is no longer an issue. His proof of these claims might be as silly as the presence of Thomas on the court or having Cain run as a Republican, who knows what gymnastics this man is capable of in pushing his politics upon his decisions. If the VRA is overturned because it singles out specific communities rather than the entire nation, then the obvious remedy would be to apply it to the entire nation. But that is not what Scalia wants, he wants the entire subject to be tabled permanently because it just seems so quaint in these post-racial times.