The "benchmark" for determining whether or not a state is subject to the special provisions is the turnout of voters in the 1964 presidential election. Areas with below a 50% turnout in 1964 are presumed to be discriminating.

One of the proposed changes -- considered to be an act of desecration of the VRA by opponents -- would have dropped 1964 as a benchmark and instead have required preclearance for areas in which there was less than a 50% turnout during any one of the three most recent elections. This would have therefore attacked current voting issues rather than an election now four decades in the past (which will be nearly 7 decades in the past at the time these provisions are set to expire). Why the problem with using current data rather than historical data?

http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/186077.php

The House renewed the 1965 Voting Rights Act by a 390-33 vote, rejecting efforts by Southern conserv...

Some of the worst race riots occurred in Boston, so the issue isn't just a southern one. Please justify with examples from today that show the nine states in question are having problems that are not being experienced in any of the other states. Saying everyone should have prior review or no one should have prior review is not ignoring the past, but dealing with the reality of today. The democrats group identification thinking is comfortable with an immutable world where the past impacts present groups despite all other evidence. That is just wrong.

I do not follow your argument about necessity and redundancy. Clearly, blacks were disenfranchised in the southern states before the VRA. The law fixed that. Without the law, it would not have been fixed. The law was neither unnecessary nor redundant.

We can pass laws singling out former criminals for sanction because the Constitution permits that pursuant to due process. In this case, though, the Constitution rather clearly gives plenary power to state legislatures to handle reapportionment/redistricting matters and separately requires that laws passed by Congress be operative equally to all states. These two provisions of the VRA violate those principles.

Your original post made me wonder where exactly you were coming from on this subject. Your comment is beginning to remove some doubts.

And to claim that the law is "unnecessary" because of the relevant amendments is uterrly mindless. Constitutional provisions are not enforcable laws. They are the framework in which laws are written. One does not suffer legal penalty for violating a constitutional amendment, one suffers legal penalty for violating a law that is consistent with, or that gives legal definition to Constitutional provisions. Without an enabling law that is enforced, Constitutional provisions are simply words on paper.

The controversy is over the provisions that single out nine states for special treatment under the law, not whether minorities should have equal voting rights.

There's no question that the Voting Rights Act itself is Constitutional. Indeed, it's Constitutionally unnecessary because the 15th Amendment (and arguably, the 14th) gives blacks voting rights. It's the unequal application of the law that's a problem.

The federal government has the power to insure that all the people are granted equal protection under the law. This issue was decided long ago, and at great cost. It was perhaps our nations finest moment, and we, the overwhelming majority of the people, aint gonna go back.