George F. Will: In a rut on the Voting Rights Act

In 1982, Section 2 of the VRA was amended to say that the act is violated whenever nomination and election processes “are not equally open to participation” by minority voters. And equality of participation is said to be denied whenever minority voters “have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to … elect representatives of their choice.” And representatives “of their choice” has been construed to mean representatives who are members of the same minority. This expresses two tenets of progressivism's racialism. One is identity politics: Your race is your political identity. The other is categorical representation: Members of a race can be understood and represented only by members of this race. By this reasoning the VRA has become an instrument for what Roberts has hitherto called “a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

Each renewal of the 1965 act should have involved sifting the most recent voting results, but the most recent data used in 2006 was from 1972. By 2031, this data will be 59 years old. Unless the court now stops this pernicious silliness, in 2031 Section 5 will no doubt be renewed a fifth time, perhaps for 34 years, through the centennial of this temporary measure.

George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP