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"If Donald Trump is playing king, Roberts is his court jester."
"More than a decade later, it’s obvious that not only was Roberts out of his mind, but also that his doe-eyed ignorance about the level of racial progress since 1965 has actively enabled the country’s current backward slide into Jim Crow." - @AngryBlackLady
#SCOTUS #VoterSuppresion #VRA
#BlackMastodon #JohnRoberts #CivilRights #coup
"Doe-eyed ignorance"? I think Roberts knew exactly what the situation was and lied.
He has been hostile to the Voting Rights Act since his days in the Reagan admin.
@TCatInReality No you have that completely backwards.
Roberts wasn't hostile to the VRA, he was a supporter of the law! That actually buttressed the VRA.
A lot of people really don't understand that when laws are faithfully respected in the courts that makes them more, not less, powerful.
Roberts didn't lie. And it has absolutely nothing to do with DEI, which was a really nutty leap for the linked article to make.
Yes, times change. Doesn't mean they have changed completely, but when Roberts pointed out that it was important to set aside the loopholes and faithfully apply the law in light of the changed circumstances, that was an extremely rational position to take.
And it's why he was able to gain the support of the other justices. This sort of sensational article talks as if he's acting unilaterally, but that's not how the world works.
@volkris @JaniceOCG @AngryBlackLady
Sorry, that's a hard disagree from me.
Roberts may be more eloquent and caution than Rehnquist (who he clerked for), but he has a very long history of arguing for reducing the scope and power of the VRA. Time and time again, he reduced protections for suppressed voters - ultimately destroying it almost in entirety in the past few years.
The fact he continues to find new restrictions tells me his view of "the law" is fluid and driven by hostility.
Again, you're reducing the facts here. Roberts doesn't get to act on his own. The majority of Supreme Court justices came to the same conclusion, and without the other four Roberts would have just been whistling into the wind.
And in the years since the ruling we've seen that the VRA is very much still active. It's clearly not destroyed.
The reductionism of saying it was all Roberts who destroyed the VRA just doesn't match the facts before us, so the argument doesn't have legs.
@volkris @JaniceOCG @AngryBlackLady
And you're applying a reductionism on me that doesn't exist.
I've simply explained that Roberts has long been hostile to VRA with decades of new justifications to reduce it's scope and enforceability.
I never said it was "all" Roberts and never said the other justices don't play a role. That's you.
And as for the health of the VRA, it is objectively a vastly diminished law - allowing hundreds of GOP suppression laws. So GTFOH with "it's still active"