To the editor: Columnist Jonah Goldberg provides credit score on a floor degree to each the Equal Safety Clause of the U.S. Structure and to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which he opines “can pull in reverse instructions,” thereby implying that they’re in battle with one another (“Cory Booker should be ashamed of himself,” Could 12). However are they?
Does the Equal Safety Clause require that Black voters forfeit the influence of their vote merely due to their handle? Congress answered that query with the enactment of the Voting Rights Act. Goldberg counters that the Voting Rights Act was meant to be “transitional,” as if there have been some form of sundown clause inherent inside it. After which Goldberg ignores the present and rising racial hostility by proclaiming that “nothing — nothing — within the court docket’s determination makes Jim Crow extra seemingly, authorized or constitutional.”
If that weren’t presumptuous and boastful sufficient, he stoops to advert hominem assaults in opposition to Sen. Cory Booker by accusing him of demagoguery and implying that he’s a hypocrite as a result of he’s Black and nearly all of his constituents are usually not Black. The place did that come from, apart from a determined try and validate the Supreme Court docket’s Louisiana vs. Callais determination?
Louis Lipofsky, Beverly Hills
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To the editor: Whereas I don’t essentially align with Goldberg politically, I discover his commentary, each within the Los Angeles Occasions and when he seems on CNN, to be principally considerate and pragmatic. His criticism of Booker’s feedback and accompanying argument that the Voting Rights Act doesn’t mandate majority-minority congressional districts are legitimate. The current Louisiana vs. Callais determination is nothing greater than a logical extension of the 2019 Rucho vs. Frequent Trigger determination, which eliminated federal judicial oversight of partisan gerrymandering claims. The court docket’s opinion, nonetheless, famous that partisan gerrymandering is incompatible with democratic ideas.
The present redistricting frenzy is a race to the underside by each events, whereas acknowledging that President Trump began the ball rolling together with his redistricting request to the Texas governor. The answer to partisan gerrymandering is laws to mandate impartial redistricting commissions, one thing California had earlier than it was quickly put aside in response to redistricting in Texas.
Michael Sanders, Los Alamitos
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To the editor: These days, I really feel numb from the cognitive dissonance. And but the ultimate query Goldberg poses about why electing a Black senator in a majority non-Black state isn’t the identical factor as racially gerrymandering U.S. congressional districts had me sputtering.
The inhabitants of your complete state votes for senator (reminder: every state will get two), whereas for U.S. Congress, voters solely have the alternatives provided of their residence district. When these districts are artificially gerrymandered, voices and votes are diluted, if not silenced utterly. There’s a distinction between an apple and an orange, despite the fact that one might argue they’re each fruits.
Paula Rudnick, Los Angeles
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To the editor: So Booker is elected in New Jersey by each Black and white residents. New Jersey is within the North. The states main the redistricting efforts to extra white-majority districts are within the South. Learn your historical past, and you’ll perceive the regional distinction (clearly).
Whether or not the Supreme Court docket is intellectually right or not, I’m not satisfied it has made the very best name right now and place in our historical past. By the best way, I used to be raised within the South.
Larry Furman, Woodland Hills
