Greg Sargent answers the question but my first reaction to the question is: you're kidding right? They''ll fix it after they pass immigration reform and fix Obmacare should the Supreme Court gut it in King vs. Burwell.
Sargent says the key reason they won't fix Clause 4-that the Supremes struck down-is the current makeup of the House.
“A strong plurality of House Republicans are from the south, and their strategy has been to pack African Americans into one district across some southern states, and preserve every other district for themselves,” Wasserman of the Cook Political report tells me. He adds that Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee each have one such black-heavy district, while North Carolina has two."
“House Republicans are pretty happy with the status quo in the south — particularly the fact that packing African Americans has led to safe Republican surrounding districts,” Wasserman continues. “Any efforts to newly implement a pre-clearance regime could interfere with that status quo.”
“Republicans aren’t going to bring something to the floor that is supported by 40 of them, but opposed by 200 of them,” Wasserman says.
It's true that historically the Voting Rights Act passed on a bipartisan basis but that was a very different time than today. To start with as Sargent shows, today's GOP is a dominated by the South where as the GOP party of 1964 that voted for VRA was still largely the Northeastern party they'd always been-the old Yankee GOP.
If you want to know why the GOP won't vote to fix the VRA, it's pretty simple: they don't belive in it as a fundamental principle that everyone has a right to vote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw
Way back in 1980, Weyrich got it right: the chance of the Right goes up when less people vote. The formula hasn't changed.
Sargent says the key reason they won't fix Clause 4-that the Supremes struck down-is the current makeup of the House.
“A strong plurality of House Republicans are from the south, and their strategy has been to pack African Americans into one district across some southern states, and preserve every other district for themselves,” Wasserman of the Cook Political report tells me. He adds that Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee each have one such black-heavy district, while North Carolina has two."
“House Republicans are pretty happy with the status quo in the south — particularly the fact that packing African Americans has led to safe Republican surrounding districts,” Wasserman continues. “Any efforts to newly implement a pre-clearance regime could interfere with that status quo.”
“Republicans aren’t going to bring something to the floor that is supported by 40 of them, but opposed by 200 of them,” Wasserman says.
As E.J. Dionne notes today, voting rights is an area where Republicans can legitimately claim to have participated in historical, bipartisan reform. But 50 years later, such bipartisan action is unlikely.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/03/09/morning-plum-why-congress-wont-fix-the-voting-rights-act-anytime-soon/It's true that historically the Voting Rights Act passed on a bipartisan basis but that was a very different time than today. To start with as Sargent shows, today's GOP is a dominated by the South where as the GOP party of 1964 that voted for VRA was still largely the Northeastern party they'd always been-the old Yankee GOP.
If you want to know why the GOP won't vote to fix the VRA, it's pretty simple: they don't belive in it as a fundamental principle that everyone has a right to vote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw
Way back in 1980, Weyrich got it right: the chance of the Right goes up when less people vote. The formula hasn't changed.
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