It is not every day that the US Supreme Court so actively challenges the designated constitutional authority of the US Congress, considering that Congress, as it did with the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in 2006, enforces the right of citizens of the United States to vote. Congress is specifically empowered by section 2 of the 15th Amendment as stated below. Accordingly, section 5 of the Voting Rights Act gave the Justice Department the right to target voter restriction efforts in states with records of disenfranchising minorities.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It is easy to attribute the apparent smirk of Chief Justice John Roberts to his satisfaction of dropping voting rights back into the lap of an obstructed Congress: controlled in one body, the House, by right-wing, tea party radicals and hamstrung in the Senate by a filibustering minority. It is a Congress vastly different from the bi-partisan group who overwhelmingly passed the 2006 version of VRA. But even as a young jurist, Roberts’ objectivity was questionable, his prejudice against the VRA being well known.

It is also easy to see the rest of the five-vote majority of the Supreme Court as either pawns of business interests since Scalia and Thomas have been seen consorting with the Koch Brothers in billionaire political strategy meetings, or unfriendly to constitutional rights. Even Justice Thomas’ ethics were questioned when he was cited for failing to report income his wife earned working for two right-wing groups, Heritage Foundation and Liberty Central, which she started.

Scalia and Thomas were known to attend Koch brother secret meetings which provided planning opportunities for business moguls to directly fund efforts against Democrats who still tend to favor the interests of the middle class. Indiscriminate and secret funding was made possible by another Supreme Court decision in 2010, Citizens United, which allowed unlimited spending by business interests.

A fourth conservative justice, Samuel Alito, was never a friend to equal rights either, for according to the Boston Globe, “he made a statement that has startled many legal analysts: He said he disagreed with the Warren court decisions on reapportionment, which required that voters have equal representation.” We can attribute that vetting failure to Democrats in the Senate who approved him in 2005.

Now that the VRA has been struck down, Texas, North Carolina, and other states controlled by Republicans – some not covered by VRA —  will roll out efforts to suppress minority voting. It is their answer to changing demographics that gave Democrats the advantage with minorities in the last two presidential elections.

In response to conservative justice claims that the VRA is no longer needed, we might ask, “Where were the justices when voters in Florida prominently stood in line for hours during the 2012 presidential election, made necessary by Republican governor, Rick Scott’s refusal to extend hours of voting and provide adequate resources to vote in certain precincts, or did they not see all the efforts of Republican-controlled states to suppress voting?”

Obviously the conservative Supreme Court justices live in a privileged world where their blinders keep out the efforts of Republican states to suppress voting by minorities.

Unfortunately reality prescribes a continuing fight for rights and freedom in a country hamstrung by Republican conservatives in government, where freedoms are constrained and privilege is extended to the rich by the Supreme Court and where the media seeks to entertain.

Perhaps that is why “the cause of democracy and freedom” is invoked so often by demagogues and patriots alike, the latter, conscientious and serious.

It seems to never fully arrive.

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