A Civil-Rights Victory

◼ The Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn a small part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is actually a victory for civil rights. - John Fund/National Review

Clint Bolick, director of litigation for the conservative Goldwater Institute in Arizona, says the demise of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act will also reduce the balkanization of racial gerrymandering that has become so popular lately. “Voting districts drawn on racial or ethnic lines divide Americans,” he says. “This decision helps move us toward the day in which racial gerrymandering becomes a relic of the past.”

◼ Voting Rights Progress - Wall St. Journal EDITORIAL

The U.S. has a long and difficult history with racial discrimination, but on Tuesday the Supreme Court marked a milestone worth celebrating when it ruled that a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act has outlived its usefulness. The political left is reacting as if this means a return to Jim Crow, but the ruling is best understood as a sign of the racial progress that progressives claim to believe in.

◼ Supreme Court says Voting Rights Act of 1965 is no longer relevant - Stephen Dinan/Washington Times

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states no longer can be judged by voting discrimination that went on decades ago, a decision that argues the country has fundamentally changed since the racially motivated laws of the civil rights era.

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices said the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that mainly Southern states must undergo special scrutiny before changing their voting laws is based on a 40-year-old formula that is no longer relevant to changing racial circumstances....

“There’s just no question that the court is slowly letting go of this legacy of race in America, and is pushing it aside,” said Ward Connerly, founder of the American Civil Rights Institute. “I think the resistance you’re seeing from the NAACP, ACLU and a lot of others to the Shelby case is a recognition that the ship is moving, and it’s moving from where it was with regard to race 50 years ago — it’s moving in the direction of a post-racial era.”

◼ SUPREMES GUT VOTING RIGHTS ACT - Stephen Dinan/Washington Times
◼ OBAMA: 'DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED' - Daniel Halper/Weekly Standard
◼ JESSE JACKSON: 'Devastating blow' - CBS DC

◼ DNC raises cash off ruling - Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner

◼ Texas AG implements voter ID immediately after decision - Bryan Preston/PJMedia

“This is a huge win for the Constitution and for equality in this country,” (Texas Attorney General Greg) Abbott said. “Before today, different states were treated differently under the Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is the only law that was used to impose disparate or different kind of treatment. Specifically, Texas was called out and treated differently than other states.”

Abbott noted that Indiana approved a voter ID law a few years ago and had that law upheld by the Supreme Court. But when Texas passed a nearly identical law in 2011, the Obama administration used the Voting Rights Act to block it.

“That just showed that they were using the Voting Rights Act law to treat Texas different from Indiana, and that was part of the backdrop behind today’s decision,” Abbott said. The court ruled today that that law was being used “unfairly, illegally, inappropriately, therefore it was unconstitutional,” Abbott said.

◼ Dem smears 'Uncle Thomas' - Victor Morton/Washington Times

On his Twitter account Tuesday, state Rep. Ryan Winkler called the justices’ 5-4 ruling striking down a part of the law racist, and the work of “four accomplices to race discrimination and one Uncle Thomas.” Justice Thomas, who is black, was one of the five justices in the majority.

◼ "In the same vein as Paula Deen, I demand Minnesota State Rep Ryan Winkler resign as an elected official. If he did not understand the term 'Uncle Tom' is a racist slur he is a lying, ignorant liberal progressive. This horrific racial epithet is regularly used by white liberals and their complicit black allies to attack Black conservatives. I am sick of the duplicitous hypocrisy. Ryan, resign now." - Allen West