Remembering the significance of August 6
Nine years ago today, the United States Senate voted to confirm Justice Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. And on this day 53-years ago, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law – which expanded the promise of universal suffrage by dismantling some of the systems that kept minority voters from casting a ballot. That both should fall on the same date is fitting, as Justice Sotomayor has been an avid defender of the VRA on the Supreme Court – forcefully dissenting from recent decisions that have seen the slow and steady erosion of the promises made and protections put in place by the VRA.
One of the fondest memories I have of my time working for President Barack Obama, came just after Justice Sotomayor returned to the White House having just been confirmed by the Senate. I was part of the team that worked on her confirmation – I had been tasked with helping to mobilize support for her confirmation from outside advocacy organizations. And after the successful vote to confirm her to the Court, we held a little celebration in the White House. I vividly remember Justice Sotomayor thanking me and giving me a big hug. It was such a joyful, warm and genuine moment.
Justice Sotomayor’s work on the Court has made us all very proud – as the President knew it would. And she has been a forceful defender of voting rights and the Voting Rights Act.
Her steadfast defense of voting rights was prominently on display this past June, in Abbott vs. Perez – where the Court decided to uphold Texas’ gerrymandered districts. This was despite the fact that a lower court had previously found that the districts had been intentionally drawn to discriminate against Latinx voters. The words of her dissenting opinion are a clarion call to action in defense of voting rights:
“The Court today goes out of its way to permit the State of Texas to use maps that the three-judge District Court unanimously found were adopted for the purpose of preserving the racial discrimination that tainted its previous maps… This disregard of both precedent and fact comes at serious costs to our democracy. It means that, after years of litigation and undeniable proof of intentional discrimination, minority voters in Texas—despite constituting a majority of the population within the State—will continue to be underrepresented in the political process. Those voters must return to the polls in 2018 and 2020 with the knowledge that their ability to exercise meaningfully their right to vote has been burdened by the manipulation of district lines specifically designed to target their communities and minimize their political will. The fundamental right to vote is too precious to be disregarded in this manner. I dissent.”
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Buffy Wicks for Assembly 2024. FPPC #1456909