To the editor: The Supreme Courtroom resolution simply reversed hard-won progress underneath the Voting Rights Act (“‘Earthquake’: Supreme Court limits Voting Rights Act in setback for Black Democrats, boost for GOP,” April 29).
It means much less illustration for tens of millions of Black People and different voters of coloration, as lawmakers acquire the flexibility to control their districts. There shall be extra excessive partisan gerrymandering, lopsided elections, a much less accountable authorities and insurance policies that harm fairly than assist with on a regular basis life.
However this isn’t the time to be demoralized, as a result of we all know it doesn’t must be this fashion. We will mobilize round reform, new legal guidelines and, the place mandatory, constitutional amendments for fairer authorities. Solely then can we really feel the advantages of a balanced courtroom, a very consultant Congress and an election system free from the distorting energy of maximum company and partisan manipulation.
Paul Bacon, Hallandale Seaside, Fla.
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To the editor: I’ve a repair in your headline. As an alternative of studying “Supreme Courtroom limits Voting Rights Act in setback for Black Democrats,” it ought to learn, “Supreme Courtroom limits Voting Rights Act in a setback for democracy.” Isn’t that significantly better?
Ken Narasaki, Santa Monica
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To the editor: In authoring the latest U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling on minority voting rights, Justice Samuel A. Alito ignored early and up to date U.S. historical past.
In Federalist 10, James Madison explicitly celebrated a range of neighborhood voices as conferring safety towards a single majority operating roughshod over the rights of minorities. In tandem with the 2019 Rucho vs. Common Cause ruling, there may be now no federal safety for minority voting rights. That permits state majority political events, not communities, to pick their political representatives, precisely opposite to Madison’s imaginative and prescient.
Alito’s justification for putting off protections for racial minority voting rights was that “huge social change has occurred all through the nation and notably within the South, which have made nice strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination.” This assertion ignores the latest, overt embrace of racist statements by U.S. federal officers and the racial resegregation of colleges occasioned by latest faculty alternative legal guidelines.
William McCarthy, Malibu
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To the editor: Justice Alito fools nobody. He proves a number of consistencies by way of his selections, speeches and written opinions.
First, the upside-down American flag as soon as outdoors his house, supposedly positioned that manner by his wife over a neighborhood dispute, is constant together with his ongoing, decades-long makes an attempt to show the legal guidelines and accepted rules within the U.S. the other way up. Second, any potential distinction between his intent and impression not exists. Third, his try to look as an inexpensive mental solely additional obfuscates what I think about his actual intent to be, to embrace white supremacy.
Let’s apply Alito’s logic to himself. Can he show that his intent is to not discriminate? And I haven’t even begun to enumerate examples of his non secular fanaticism. Justice Alito’s Invoice of Rights is a really small record that he would apply solely to those that look, really feel, suppose and imagine as he does.
Joel Pelcyger, Los Angeles
