
eBook - ePub
When the Letter Betrays the Spirit
Voting Rights Enforcement and African American Participation from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
When the Letter Betrays the Spirit
Voting Rights Enforcement and African American Participation from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama
About this book
When the Letter Betrays the Spirit examines the wide latitude provided to the executive branch and to the Supreme Court by the text of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing from government enforcement data, legislative history, Supreme Court rulings, the 2006 reauthorization debate on the VRA, and from the 2007 scandal involving the firing of U.S. attorneys under the Bush Administration, the book examines when, why, and how executive and judicial discretion facilitates violation of voting rights. Connecting Johnson to Obama, the book outlines why the executive-centered model of voting rights enforcement relegates Congress to the sidelines, and outlines why a Congress-centered approach provides the best protection against the effects of the law enforcement axiom: the law is neither self-executing nor self-interpreting. The book also examines 2008 survey results about public support for a Jim Crow-era election reform policy that would require voters to read a passage of the Constitution. Describing the civic literacy dimensions of voting rights law from Shaw v. Reno (1993) to Northwest Austin Utility v. Holder (2009), the book highlights the complicated nature of the post-racial rhetoric surrounding the 2008 election cycle and surrounding the upcoming post-2010 census redistricting cycles.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access When the Letter Betrays the Spirit by Tyson D. King-Meadows in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I: A Retrospective and Prospective Look at the Voting Rights Act
- Chapter 1: Why Discretion Matters in Voting Rights Enforcement
- Chapter 2: Obama’s Inheritance
- Part II: The Challenge to Congressional Authority
- Chapter 3: Misdirections
- Chapter 4: Partisan Spoils of Office
- Chapter 5: Is “Bull Connor” Dead?
- Chapter 6: A Battle of Principals
- Part II: A Systems Theory Approach to Enforcement
- Chapter 7: The Macro-Political Context Shaping Enfranchisement
- Conclusion: Regulating Discretion and the Challenge of Post-Racial Politics
- Appendix 1: Minority Descriptive Representation and the Voting Rights Act
- Appendix 2: Measuring Contemporary Public Opinion on Voting Rights Policy
- Selected Bibliography