“Ever since the beginning of time, John Roberts has yearned to destroy the Voting Rights Act.”

I have a piece up about two excellent recent articles about the Republican war on voting rights:

Essentially, the Republican Party worked a clever bait-and-switch. Legislators would nominally support the Voting Rights Act, while Republican executive officials, judges, and statehouses worked full-time to undermine its effectiveness at every turn. This incremental war against the Voting Rights Act has the benefit of advancing Republican policy views and interests without attracting the public attention that would come from outright refusing to re-enact the Voting Rights Act.

But let’s be clear: The Supreme Court reflects the views of today’s Republican Party much more than the 2006 vote does. (Note that Congress has not acted to revise the Voting Rights Act, although the Supreme Court nominally left the door open for a different pre-clearance formula.)

And this war against the Voting Rights Act is connected to a broader movement against voting rights. Higher voter turnout generally benefits the Democratic Party. Not coincidentally, various rules that make it harder to vote have been enacted by Republican-controlled states. Such vote suppression is generally defended on the grounds that it’s intended to thwart voter fraud, but these arguments are pathetically feeble.

In another essential article, Ari Berman of The Nation describes this campaign of disenfranchisement. Berman links the beginning of this campaign to the crucial 2000 election, which among other consequences led to a long-time enemy of voting rights being nominated chief justice of the Supreme Court. George W. Bush’s razor-thin plurality in Florida was the product of vote suppression on both ends. Before the fact, the Florida government (governor: Jeb Bush) engaged in a purge of the voter rolls that included many eligible voters. After the fact, both Bushes worked tirelessly to prevent a fair recount. This all culminated in Shelby County‘s only competition for the worst Supreme Court decision of the last 20 years: Bush v. Gore.

The Rutenberg and Berman pieces linked within are very much worth reading.