Keeping Alabama from going back to the days of taxation without representation

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed a brief to defend the Voting Rights Act against a constitutional challenge filed in Shelby (related to Dick?) County, Alabama.

LDF’s brief asks the District Court for the District of Columbia to deny Alabama’s motion for summary judgment –which seeks to have the Section 5 preclearance provision declared unconstitutional based on recycled arguments that have been rejected previously. Instead, LDF asks the court to grant its motion for summary judgment on the grounds that a detailed Congressional record demonstrates that ongoing discrimination remains pervasive in those states and jurisdictions around the country where Section 5 applies.

Yep, emboldened by their bloodbath,the red republicans from the reddest state in the union(aka the cradle of the Confederacy), are trying to get rid of them there gerrymandered districts even though ongoing discrimination remains pervasive in The Heart of Dixie. It's even more ironic this issue comes to the forefront at the same time jury selection begins in the Jimmy Lee Jackson murder trial, 45 years after the fact.

Jackson’s death on Feb. 26, 1965, became the catalyst a few days later for the Selma-to-Montgomery march, a major turning point in the civil rights movement and an event that helped bring about passage of one of the most important pieces of legislation in the nation’s history, the Voting Rights Act.
Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was black, is now a martyr of the movement. Highways in the Black Belt are named for him. He figures in history books on the era.

This is what happens when republicans win elections... one of the first things they do is try to go back to the states right to discriminate against minorities.

“Shelby County, Alabama is the latest challenge brought by opponents who seek to have a core provision of the Voting Rights Act declared unconstitutional based on arguments that have been soundly rejected. But, the facts speak for themselves. There is a long, detailed and thoroughly examined record that shows widespread and ongoing discrimination in many parts of the country,” said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel.

In 2006, the City of Calera, which lies within Shelby County, enacted a discriminatory redistricting plan and failed to seek federal review of the plan as it is required to do under Section 5, leading to the loss of the city’s sole African-American councilman, Ernest Montgomery, who was the preferred candidate of African American voters. Eventually, through enforcement of Section 5, Calera was required to draw a nondiscriminatory redistricting plan and conduct another election in which Mr. Montgomery, one of the clients represented by LDF in this case, regained his seat. This result allowed Black voters to assert their preference at the ballot box.

The African American vote is a powerful voting block. Both parties realize they can't win elections without the African American vote, so is their plan to neutralize it's block voting strength?. The Voting Rights Act plays a central role in redistricting.

Redistricting will determine political representation for the decade to come, with political lines redrawn so that each district is roughly equal in population size based on the most recent census data. The maps that are produced must also comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.

“The Voting Rights Act plays a central role during the redistricting process. Therefore, it is important that historically under-represented communities be educated about the process to ensure that they do not have their voting strength diluted,” Clarke explained. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits minority vote dilution, providing that a voting practice is unlawful if it has a discriminatory effect. Section 2 also prohibits the enactment of redistricting plans (and other voting practices) that was adopted with a discriminatory purpose.

NAACP State President Earl Vaughn tried to tell y'all,

It’s been crazy,” said Vaughn, a Dothan resident and president of the Alabama chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “I’m getting beat up pretty bad out there and I didn’t say what they said I said.”

Vaughn said national media reports indicating he wants Alabama’s Azalea Trail Maids kept from marching in the Inaugural Parade next week in Washington are inaccurate.

Vaughn said he believes some publications took a portion of a comment he made last week to the Montgomery Advertiser that changed the meaning of his statement.

In the Thursday, Jan. 8, edition of the Advertiser, Vaughn said he is disappointed no part of the African-American community, such as the marching bands from historically black schools Tuskegee or Alabama State, where chosen to represent Alabama along with the Trail Maids.

So did AL State Senator Hank Sanders
"Well, there's a certain mean spiritness that's out there, not only in Alabama but it's in America. And that makes this election extremely important."

Redeye tiptoeing away from the computer whistling Dixie...