Mike Gottlieb writes that in a 5-4 verdict, the US Supreme Court today ruled that the child in the case that I wrote about on Sunday should not have been taken away from the adoptive parents.
Meanwhile Amy Howe writes that in another 5-4 verdict the court dismantled a key provision of the Voting Rights Act while not invalidating the basic idea that certain jurisdictions need to get preclearance from the Justice Department before changing their voting rules.
The problem is that it will now be up to Congress to set new rules on which districts need preclearance and there is little chance of anything getting through that body so the Voting Rights Act will be in limbo, there on paper but not enforceable. So this ruling will enable unscrupulous districts to impose highly restrictive voting rules that may differentially disadvantage certain groups.
Scalia must feel so proud that he helped to get rid of “racial entitlements” in voting. He’s really adding to his legacy.
A legacy that will right up there with Roger Taney’s
In the words of your prior post, states require men to jump through hoops to become parents “unwed biological father who has not complied with state law rules to attain legal status as a parent”,
except unless of course it is a woman identifying a man as a father for the purposes of child support. At that point the state and the courts just assume that is true, and if the man doesn’t again jump through the proper hoops and in a timely fashion (regardless of whether he was informed) the state can force him to pay child support from someone’s kid for 18 or more years.
The state is pretty fucked up.
In this case, the father had legally renounced his parental rights when the child was born. Presumably that was his choice, and “the state” didn’t hold a gun to his head.