(The Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/17/09, Editorial)

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on a North Carolina redistricting case might not have a huge practical impact. The “cross-over district” at issue is not common. But the case is helpful in highlighting one of the enduring divisions in American politics.

The court ruled that the Voting Rights Act does not require creating “safe” seats for minority candidates in districts where minorities make up less than half the voting populace. This, according to another newspaper, overturns a “central goal” of the Voting Rights Act — “protecting minority voting rights.”

But that is utter nonsense. Nothing in the case suggested that minorities were being deprived of the right to vote. They were not kept away from the polls, intimidated, harassed with poll taxes or literacy tests, or otherwise importuned.

The only thing the ruling might be said to do is to reduce, slightly, the odds that a minority might win a particular seat, in the same way that failing to require the political gerrymandering of a legislative district might reduce the odds that an incumbent or a member of a given party might win a particular seat.

To put it another way, the court refused to say that the Voting Rights Act requires states to guarantee political outcomes. But it did nothing to limit opportunities.

The only way the court ruling could be said to interfere with voting rights is if the right to vote is synonymous with the right to have your candidate win. Even then, the argument is predicated on the increasingly outdated notion that minorities automatically prefer candidates who share their skin color, and that white Americans will not vote for a person of ethnic origin. That would come as a surprise to, e.g., Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has ruled that electoral districts must have a majority of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of the Voting Rights Act.
     
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WASHINGTON – Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr is asking the Supreme Court to help him get on the ballot in Louisiana, where he says Hurricane Gustav made his party miss the filing deadline.

In a plea directed to Justice Antonin Scalia, who oversees matters that come to the court from Louisiana, Barr says the high court is his last chance to get on the state’s ballot.

A federal judge initially agreed with Barr and the party that he should be on the ballot, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the state probably was correct in keeping him off.

The original deadline was Sept. 2, but Gustav hit the state the day before and forced the closure of the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office, which runs elections, from Sept 2 to Sept. 7.

The deadline was extended until Sept. 8, although a separate executive order by Gov. Bobby Jindal waived all deadlines until Sept. 12. The Libertarians submitted their ballot application on Sept. 11.

Barr is on the ballot in 43, though court challenges could change that.

RALEIGH, N.C. – The North Carolina Supreme Court must now decide whether state lawmakers violated the state constitution when they approved the state lottery in 2005.

Justices heard oral arguments Monday in a lawsuit filed by the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law.

Attorney Bob Orr told justices that a lottery ticket contains an inherent tax and must be approved like a state tax as required by the constitution. He said the bill should have been voted on twice by the House and Senate on two different days because lottery proceeds generate money for public education.

State attorney Norma Harrell disagreed, arguing that the lottery commission is merely a vendor and that purchasing a lottery ticket is voluntary.

There’s no timeline on when the justices will rule.