Austin Area Voting Rights Case Headed To Supreme Court/Idea For Lawsuit Against Democratic Party

A lawsuit that started in the Austin, Texas suburb of Canyon Creek and that will test the limits of the Voting Rights Act is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Please click here to read the Wall Street Journal story on the suit. 

The issue began when a man named Don Zimmerman wanted to move a polling place from one place to another place that he saw as more convenient. Mr. Zimmerman is a lifelong Republican and a fan of libertarian Congressman Ron Paul.  

Moving the polling place required federal approval because Texas is still under the provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Any change in election procedure in a VRA  jurisdiction requires federal approval.

Mr. Zimmerman is suing because he sees this oversight as unfair.

Conservatives in Texas fear losing the state to a coalition of white and minority Democrats. Who knows what they might be up to as Texas (someday soon I’m sure) changes for the better?  

( Below–Former President George W. Bush signing a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006. Even a bad man can do a good thing.)

You can say that a black man was just elected President of the United States–But most of the places still open to enforcement of the Voting Rights Act did not vote for Mr. Obama. Many whites in these places are still not on board with our future as an open multi-ethnic society. 

These conservatives are my fellow citizens and I would not deny them any rights or legal recourse that we all share. Yet while I do view them as fellow citizens in equal standing with all others, I also see them as people you need to watch like a hawk. 

    

(Here is good information on the Red-Tailed Hawk such as you see in the picture above.)

Below is a map of places still under the jurisdiction of the Voting Rights Act.  

The Voting Rights Act was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1965. Here is information on the Voting Rights Act.  Here is information on Lyndon Johnson.

Instead of a lawsuit by this Mr. Zimmerman that has the true intent of weakening the ability of our government to protect the rights of all people, I have a suggestion of my own for a lawsuit.

I propose that minority voters, liberals and all Democrats across the nation sue the Democratic Party and any number of elected Democrats for years of acquiescing, and in many cases tacitly encouraging, low minority turnout.

 The suit could charge that in cities and in majority-minority districts across the nation, the Democratic Party and its elected officials have looked the other way at officeholders racking up millions in campaign dollars from interests at odds with the core constituencies of the Democratic party and at odds with the general interests of the people of  the United States.

As these folks take in the money, they are elected year-after-year in barely contested elections while conditions in America’s cities decline.

Could this have ever been the intent or spirit of the Voting Rights Act?

( Republicans living rural areas could come up with a suit of their own along many of the the same lines.)

Mr. Zimmerman and his allies are bad actors. Yet in opposing Mr. Zimmerman’s efforts we should not lose sight of the damage done from our own side of the aisle.