The whole world is watching

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 21 other worldwide human rights leaders tell Supreme Court: Uphold the Voting Rights Act

One of the most memorable moments during the long struggle against apartheid in South Africa came in May, 1994, on the day Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as President. Standing beside Mr. Mandela, another hero of that struggle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu proclaimed, "We are free today! We are free today! All of us, black and white together!"
 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Nearly 20 years later, Archbishop Tutu is speaking out for one of the most fundamental freedoms in the United States: the right to vote. He has joined with 21 other prominent human rights leaders from around the world to sign an open letter to the Supreme Court. They are urging the Court to uphold a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. As they note in the letter: "America's leadership in voting rights has been a beacon of hope for millions around the world who have made their own sacrifices for freedom and democracy."

Alliance for Justice is honored to join with the Institute for Policy Studies and the NAACP in sending the letter to the Supreme Court and distributing it to the public. Our joint statement, and a link to the full letter, follow:

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 25, 2012 - In an unprecedented show of international interest in a Supreme Court case, 22 of the world's most prominent human rights leaders want the justices to know: The whole world is watching. This week the United States Supreme Court hears a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark American civil rights law.

Those leaders, from 22 countries on five continents, including South African Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, sent an open letter to the Court urging the justices to uphold a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The letter was released prior to the Court’s oral arguments by the Institute for Policy Studies, Alliance for Justice and the NAACP.

"Beyond your borders, the global march toward justice will suffer grievous harm should you surrender to those who seek to disenfranchise American citizens," the letter says. "We urge you to heed the United States Congress' judgment that continued federal enforcement of the voting rights guaranty is appropriate and necessary."

"On Wednesday, the whole world will once again be watching as the Supreme Court deliberates over one of the most fundamental rights for people everywhere: the right of all people to vote," said John Cavanagh, Director of the Institute for Policy Studies.

"The Voting Rights Act is the keystone in the arch of protection for people of color in the United States," said Nan Aron, President of Alliance for Justice. "This letter makes clear that the law also is a beacon of hope for people around the world. We call on this Court to recognize that the Voting Rights Act is as necessary now as it was on the day it became law."

"Voting is the cornerstone of any democracy," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, "We live in a world of ever-increasing diversity. Every nation, including the United States, must seek the best means of protecting the rights of each minority, regardless of the size of that group. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has proven to be the best tool for ensuring all Americans are full and equal members of our democracy. We must make sure it is always available to ensure the integrity of our elections."

"The possibility that the conservative wing of the Supreme Court will eviscerate the 1965 Voting Rights Act threatens the ability of Americans of color to freely participate in their government, erasing years of struggle and the sacrifices of many," said Julian Bond, chairman emeritus of the NAACP. "The United States would lose whatever standing we have gained in recent years, and our country would be held in ridicule worldwide."

The court is hearing a challenge to Section 5 of the Act. This part of the law requires certain jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to obtain advance approval before changing voting rules or procedures. Covered jurisdictions that demonstrate a record of applying their voting rules fairly and equitably can apply to be exempted from this provision.

The letter cited recent efforts to restrict voting during the American presidential election, noting that "the widespread efforts to enact new voting restrictions, with known and intended discriminatory effects, confirms that America still has need of flexible federal power to halt new attempts at disenfranchisement."

The letter was signed by human rights leaders from:
Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, El Salvador, India, Italy, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, United Kingdom.

• Read the full letter
• Read more about why we still need the Voting Rights Act

From Huffington Post: Let the Hearing Begin

The Senate Judiciary Committee will convene Monday morning at 10:00 a.m. to begin the hearing on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to become an associate justice of the Supreme Court. The hearing will be a consequential moment in our history, but not so much because the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor is on the line. Barring some unforeseen and very unlikely event, Republicans will quickly back off attacks on Judge Sotomayor herself. They recognize that it is politically dangerous to criticize her given her appealing personal story of rising from a housing project in the Bronx to the pinnacle of our judiciary through enormous talent and hard work, her record as a moderate who feels bound to follow the law strictly on the bench, and her ethnicity and gender.

Instead, they will use the occasion to promote their distorted view of the law – not what it is but what they would like it to be in a republic ruled by hard-right judicial activists such as Chief John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. For that reason, the week will offer an enormously important contrast between the nominee and her supporters and this ominous Republican vision.

So, what are the themes that Republicans will raise in response to Judge Sotomayor’s nomination?

First, they will highlight the Ricci case, the challenge by white firefighters to New Haven’s voluntary effort to avoid discrimination against minority firefighters. Judge Sotomayor, of course, sat on a panel of the Second Circuit that summarily affirmed the lower court’s decision that New Haven’s decision to scrap a test for promotion of firefighters to avoid disproportionately excluding black and Hispanic applicants was consistent with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Repudiating decades of settled civil rights law, the Supreme Court reversed that decision in a 5-4 opinion. The five conservatives on the Court, who have traditionally been hostile to claims of discrimination by minorities, created a new rule and broke with standard practice by directing judgment for the white firefighters, rather than sending the case back to the lower court so that New Haven could prove that it met the new standard. While Republicans will criticize Sotomayor’s participation in the panel decision and will bring in the lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci, to testify (surely they would not suggest that empathy for Ricci should influence the result), the fact remains that 11 of 21 judges who reviewed Mr. Ricci’s claim ruled against him. Judge Sotomayor can hardly be considered out of the mainstream or at fault for failing to apply the law that the conservatives made up when the case reached the Supreme Court.

Republicans will also use the hearing to promote guns. In their continuing quest to ensure that every American is armed, they will criticize a decision in which Judge Sotomayor, sitting on a unanimous panel of the Second Circuit, held that the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which ensures against federal limitations on an individual right to bear arms, does not prohibit state limitations on guns. Unfortunately for Republicans, the Supreme Court has held the very same thing three times. To find fault with Judge Sotomayor’s decision, her critics have to argue that she should have thrown the rule of law to the winds and ignored Supreme Court precedent. Even conservative icons of the bench, Judges Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner, have agreed with Judge Sotomayor on this issue. That, however, is unlikely to stop conservatives from using the occasion to lecture about the sanctity of the Second Amendment as a guarantee of fundamental rights.

Republicans will also raise questions about abortion – even though Judge Sotomayor has never ruled on abortion and does not have any known public statements on the issue. In any event, support for Roe v. Wade, which is the law of the land, can hardly be a ground for disqualification from the Supreme Court. There will be no traction in criticizing Judge Sotomayor on this issue, but Republicans are likely to use the opportunity to burnish their anti-choice credentials, as if anyone had any doubt.

Republicans will criticize Judge Sotomayor for two decisions involving takings of private property by local governments. Again, both decisions are based directly on Supreme Court precedent – namely the Court’s controversial but binding decision in Kelo v. City of New London. Because Kelo has proven unpopular, however, Republicans will try to tie Judge Sotomayor to it in a critical manner, even though it remains the law of the land, which she, as a judge, is required to apply.

Republicans will also use Judge Sotomayor as a foil to fulminate against importing international law as the basis for deciding domestic legal issues. Judge Sotomayor has been very clear that she does not believe that the law of other nations or international law offer a basis for decision in the courts of the United States. Indeed, there is nothing in any of her opinions that suggests otherwise. Republicans, therefore, will attempt to misconstrue a speech she gave in which she allowed that good ideas may arise outside the United States and we should be receptive to them. That is a far cry from endorsing international sources of law as binding in the United States.

Finally, Republicans will attack the activities of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund (PRLDEF), which Judge Sotomayor served as a member of its Board of Directors prior to going on the bench. PRLDEF is an outstanding organization that has done exceptional work in promoting civil and constitutional rights. It operates in the great tradition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and other public interest legal organizations that have helped America to fulfill its promise as the cradle of liberty and opportunity. Republicans should be ashamed of trying to score political points off of Judge Sotomayor’s commitment to the proud tradition of public interest law.

In sum, next week will do more than allow Americans to learn more about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, it will also present an opportunity to examine the legal agenda of the hard-right. In contrast to the sterling nominee who will sit in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as the embodiment of the opportunities that America, because of its values and laws, provides to those who work hard, the ultraconservative legal agenda will appear small, ungenerous, mean-spirited, and exclusive.

Let the hearing begin.