[EL] VRA Anniversary

Wed Aug 7 06:57:58 PDT 2013

I watched President Johnson’s speech and the signing ceremony for the voting rights act this morning, and thought what a shame it is that we don’t attack the pressing matters of our day like this anymore. Here LBJ is, announcing before pen is put to paper that the Justice Department will be designating states with a history of discrimination under section 4 states tomorrow, and that he is asking the Justice Department to work through the weekend to designate counties next week. Next week, the Justice Department will be filing suit against Mississippi to get rid of its poll tax.

The old LBJ film is now up on one of my Facebook pages. Check it out and “like” my page while you are there, if interested:

https://www.facebook.com/GreidingerLegalWorks/posts/537841246265834?notif_t=notify_me  

What do we have to replace this kind of boldness? The Supreme Court gutting preclearance on confusing technical grounds, while wishing out loud that Congress would do something about that, but knowing it won’, because the distinguished Congressmens’ potential Tea Party primary opponents might be upset if Congress interfered with their fun in ringing in the bad old days of finding excuses for keeping blacks out of the precincts. If we could help Obama get rid of these cowardly Representatives in 2016, and gave Obama a Congress he could work with like LBJ had in 1965, wouldn’t that fix things?  

I wonder. Another “Sharknado” of bespoke suited lobbyists are continuing to blow into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, causing them to  duck into the storm cellar instead of finalizing the regulations that would enact reforms Congress passed years ago. Would LBJ have put up with federal employees endless dithering for years about what the mouths of Sauron think about implementing the President’s priority legislation? Why isn’t our President asking his guys to work weekends, like LBJ did with his Justice Department the day that the VRA was enacted in 1965? Sure, the Volker Rule is significant and consequential, but so was the Poll Tax and the literacy tests, and it did not take so long to figure what to do about those.

The regressives have us endlessly chasing our tales over minutia and worrying too much about the thoughts of folks who ultimately have their own twisted interests, and not the people’s interest in mind. We need to take a lesson from LBJ and Larry the Cable Guy and “Get ‘er Done!”

Marc Greidinger, esq.

(703) 323-4661

The Voting Rights Act is 48 Today <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=54016>  

Posted on August 6, 2013 7:33 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=54016>  by Dan Tokaji <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=5>  

Happy (?) Birthday.  “Can Moral Monday help counteract SCOTUS?,” asks this Salon <http://www.salon.com/2013/08/05/reconstruction_3_0_can_moral_monday_help_counteract_scotus/>  column by Gary May, author of a book on the VRA’s history <http://www.amazon.com/Bending-Toward-Justice-Transformation-Democracy/dp/0465018467>  cited in Justice Ginsburg’s Shelby dissent. Huffpost <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/voting-rights-act-anniversary_n_3713053.html>  and the Nation <http://www.thenation.com/blog/175618/voting-rights-act-peril-48th-anniversary>  also have posts on the birthday.

 <http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D54016&title=The%20Voting%20Rights%20Act%20is%2048%20Today&description=> http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http://electionlawblog.org/?p=54016&title=The Voting Rights Act is 48 Today&description=

Posted in Voting Rights Act <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>  | Comments Off |

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