Judge Torches And Blocks Florida Voter Suppression Bill
MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart - April 1, 2022
Keep up with important news, here’s a bit of good tidings.
Judge Rules Parts of Florida Voting Law Are Unconstitutional
By Reid J. Epstein, Patricia Mazzei and Nick Corasaniti - March 31, 2022
The ruling against a major Republican election law, issued by a federal judge in Tallahassee, is likely to be overturned either by a higher appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court.
The sharply worded 288-page order, issued by Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee, was the first time a federal court had struck down major elements of the wave of voting laws enacted by Republicans since the 2020 election. Finding a pattern of racial bias, Walker in his ruling relied on a little-used legal provision to impose unusual federal restrictions on how a state legislates.
“For the past 20 years, the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents,” Walker wrote in the decision, which frequently quoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Walker argued that the attacks were “part of a cynical effort to suppress turnout among their opponents’ supporters. That, the law does not permit.”
