Thursday, June 27, 2013

Ideology At Work

Everyone can agree that there is a presumption in favor of government regulations coming from as local a governing body as possible. So, in general and at first blush, it's better to let states regulate elections than the federal government. But this isn't in the constitution, it's just a truism. And the problem is that we know without doubt that states sometimes do a very bad job at regulating. In that case, the presumption is overruled and there is nothing in the constitution that says the federal government can't regulate voting rights.



Ilya Shapiro has a somewhat longer piece attempting to defend Shelby County v. Holder. Along with Roberts’s majority opinion, it’s as effective an argument against the outcome of the case as any rebuttal could be. Let me start with what Shapiro doesn't mention:
Section 2 of the 15th Amendment
Any constitutional provision the Voting Rights Act violates

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