The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing yesterday called “The Citizens United Court and the Continuing Importance of the Voting Rights Act.” At first glance, this may seem a strange title. Citizens United, after all, was a (flawed) decision about the role of money in politics. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was passed in 1965 (and reauthorized several times since) to secure racial, ethnic, and (later) language minorities’ access to the ballot. Why bunch them together in one hearing?
Top: Pres. Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. Bottom: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson
Two reasons.
First, the role of money in politics is a voting rights issue-and it’s gratifying to see the Senate make the connection. The core problem with allowing millionaires and billionaires to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens is that this denies average Americans the equal opportunity to influence the decisions that affect their lives. It’s a violation of the core American principle of political equality-the same concern that animated the “one person, one vote” Supreme Court cases that prevent legislators from drawing districts with wildly different populations, and the same reason it’s critical to protect everyone’s right to cast a vote and have that vote counted effectively, which is the explicit goal of the Voting Rights Act.
