Democrats’ Election Bill Dramatically Expands Federal, Judicial Control Over Elections
District of Columbia | August 29, 2021
Democrats and Republicans battled on the House floor late into the evening Tuesday before voting to pass Rep. Terri Sewell’s (D-Ala.) ‘John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,’ HR4. The measure was unanimously supported by Democrats and unanimously opposed by Republicans.
HR4 was designed, according to Sewell, to address allegations of minority voter suppression by state legislatures since the 2020 election. Democrats insisted that the bill is all the more urgent in the wake of two landmark Supreme Court (SCOTUS) cases, Shelby v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (DNC), which struck down or limited the scope of certain provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA).
In 2013’s Shelby, SCOTUS conceded that the “extraordinary measures” employed by the legislation, including a requirement that certain states get federal approval to change election laws, were justified in 1965. But, evaluating available data on elections in the 21st century, a majority of the justices agreed that the “extraordinary circumstances” of deliberate efforts at suppressing minorities’ ability to vote no longer existed. Because of this, the Opinion of the Court delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts struck down the so-called ‘preclearance provision’ of the VRA.
In 2021’s Brnovich, SCOTUS considered a suit by the DNC against the state… (Excerpts from the Epoch Times)