Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

A federal judge today struck down several provisions of the state GOP's nightmarish voter suppression law, ordering the state placed under the Voting Rights Act's pre-clearance clause for blatantly unconstitutional acts.

 

In his decision issued Thursday, Judge Mark Walker ruled that the provisions in the law restricting drop boxes, creating new requirements for voter applications including vote-by-mail, and banning interactions with voters on line were unconstitutional and could not be enforced by the state. The law was a top priority of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The decision also put Florida under the “preclearance” provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act, a measure first used on mostly Southern states in the 1960s to prevent them from discriminating against minorities in the voting booth. Under it, the state would need federal court approval to make any revisions to its elections laws for the next 10 years.

Walker cited Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous quote about Americans not being “judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” but added that a few years later King said, “some of the old optimism was a little superficial and now it must be tempered with a solid realism.”

“While this Court lauds the idealism of Dr. King’s dream in 1963, this Court is not so naïve to believe that the Florida Legislature would not pass an intentionally discriminatory law in 2021,” Walker wrote. “We do not live in a colorblind society— not that this was ever Dr. King’s point.

“For the past 20 years, the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents,” Walker wrote. “They have done so not as, in the words of Dr. King, ‘vicious racists, with [the] governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification,’ but as part of a cynical effort to suppress turnout among their opponents’ supporters. That, the law does not permit.”

 

This is a big win, but I expect it will be quickly blocked by the 11th Circuit for being too close to the primary elections.  You know, the ones in late August.

We'll see if this holds. It is a major win for today.

I don't think it will last..