It’s being reported that some Democrats will soon be introducing a bill amending the Voting Rights Act, and that the new bill is even more extreme than an earlier bill that has failed to gain any traction in either house. The new bill would not, for example, exempt voter ID, and it would cover more jurisdictions than the earlier bill — indeed, more jurisdictions than the original Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. So we are to believe that there are more racist jurisdictions in 2015 than there were in 1965 — comprising half the country’s population. Even The Nation seems to be astonished.
It’s hard to believe that the bill’s sponsors expect the bill to be taken seriously. More likely it is a bone being tossed to the more extreme parts of their base, who thought the earlier bill — though bad in the extreme — was not bad enough.