But the case that I found really interesting was the one that gutted the Civil Rights Act. Section 4 used to require certain states (basically, the old Confederacy) to pre-clear changes to their voting procedures with the Department of Justice to ensure that they don't discriminate against minorities. The reason for that is that, historically, the old Confederacy has been really really racist and done its best to keep black and brown people from voting (and, until a generation or so ago, drinking from the same water fountains or going to the same schools). Every so often, Congress has to re-authorize the Civil Rights Act. Last time it did this was in 2006. This passed overwhelmingly because voting against a law called the Civil Rights Act is really really bad PR. So the challenge that came down essentially argued that, since the Civil Rights Act was passed, it's gotten a lot easier for black and brown people to vote, so we don't need the law anymore. Paul Campos from CU-Boulder law makes a somewhat disingenuous case at Salon for why the logic behind this is circular.
The argument is essentially that conservatives' logic behind repealing the Voting Rights Act (and really a lot of other legislation) is fatally flawed. In this case, the argument is that the VRA did such a great job of enfranchising minorities that... we don't need it anymore. But this isn't the only place where this logic applies. The modern right wing is built around the idea that government is always bad and any regulation is bad regulation. Get rid of all regulations and the economy will take off, the financial system will become more stable, unemployment will disappear, etc. etc. It's all baloney, of course, but that's the theory. But their case for it is always built on contorted logic that, at its root, is based on the reality that regulation in plenty of areas HAS worked effectively. To take a couple of pointed case, pollution and financial regulation. Rand Paul's argued in the past that we don't need to regulate carbon emissions because... we've been improving the quality of our air over the past few decades. Without realizing that our air quality is improving because, you know, we've regulated it in the past. So the logic is that, because air quality has improved with regulation, we need to do away with the regulation because air quality has improved?
The same thing took place over the course of decades with the financial system. After the stock market crash that started the Great Depression, the modern financial regulatory infrastructure was erected in the US. We got, among other things, deposit insurance to stop bank runs, a separation of commercial and investment banking to limit risk at banks, the SEC to police the securities industry and promote disclosure, and other changes. Some of these changes were hugely successful. Others were probably superfluous (the argument that repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999 led in some direct way to the financial crisis of 2008 is... very weak at best). But, for the most part, the regulatory infrastructure of the 1930's got us probably the most stable, prosperous few decades in modern economic history. And that worked so well that, around the mid-1970's, we got a push back from the industry arguing that regulation was unnecessary. Because there hadn't been a financial crisis in a generation, they argued, industry had gotten so good at policing itself that government wasn't needed. And, steadily, they got some of what they wanted. Some of that was probably good policy (interest rate caps were never a great idea), some was bad policy, but the general movement was definitely toward deregulation. And we had a few small-scale meltdowns; the S&L crisis in Texas came more or less directly out of deregulation, and the collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management required a private sector bailout. While the regulatory framework of the 1930s was woefully inadequate for handling a meltdown of the 21st century financial system, the general movement was in the wrong direction-- instead of realizing that the framework of the 1930's worked exceptionally well for decades and needed to be updated to accommodate the new reality of the 1990's and 2000's, the framework of the 1930's was dismantled because, well, didn't financial stability mean that it was unnecessary? As it happened, the answer was obviously not. But then, when you think about it, it really doesn't make any sense as a worldview. It's like a farmer arguing that, since he started watering his fields, his crop yields have been great, so he doesn't need to water his fields anymore.
The Civil Rights case is slightly different, sure. The reason I wasn't compelled by Campos's argument comparing a higher drinking age with incidences of alcohol-related death is that alcohol will always impair drivers. Laws to remedy racism are necessary so long as people are still racist. But the answer, in this case, is pretty clear. Right after the Supreme Court struck down Section 4, the same old Confederate states (I'm looking at you, Texas) rushed out to pass Voter ID laws and other legislation that they wouldn't have been allowed to implement under Section 4. And it's painfully obvious that the point of Voter ID isn't to prevent voter fraud (which literally just about never happens), but to keep people who are unlikely to have IDs (poor black and brown people, who happen to vote Democrat) from voting. That very rush to pass legislation should be viewed as egg on the Supreme Court's face. The instant they came out and declared that we don't need the VRA because people aren't racist anymore... the same states it applied to went out and told the Supreme Court (and America), "Yeah, we're still definitely racist."
I guess the lesson to take from this is... don't pass regulations that work too well. Because then we'll decide that we don't need regulations anymore. As an argument, it's just a little bit questionable.
Nice. Now go back to study.
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