A Modern Scottish View of Clans (and Gathering)

[gilmore]

do you mean the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Either way, they both apply to all 50 states. They may have been passed to address specific problems predominate in the South, but they're applicable to all.

You got the dates right, but the latter part of the info isn't quite accurate.

The Voting Rights Act does apply to all 50 states, but only to those with a history of governmental discrimination in voting. Want to guess where those states are? I believe, though, it has been used a few times in a very few counties and cities outside the South that had a history of racial and other discrimination in voting, and that didn't involve African Americans. But my memory may be faulty. It has been decades since I worked on voting rights litigation.

[wvpiper]

You got the dates right, but the latter part of the info isn't quite accurate.

The Voting Rights Act does apply to all 50 states, but only to those with a history of governmental discrimination in voting. Want to guess where those states are? I believe, though, it has been used a few times in a very few counties and cities outside the South that had a history of racial and other discrimination in voting, and that didn't involve African Americans. But my memory may be faulty. It has been decades since I worked on voting rights litigation.

You've echoed my point. The problems may have been primarily southern based, but the laws do not specifically single out a state, or region. It is applicable to all 50 states.

[gilmore]

You've echoed my point. The problems may have been primarily southern based, but the laws do not specifically single out a state, or region. It is applicable to all 50 states.

True, but that is something of a disingenius way of putting it.

The Voting Rights Act is, in this regard we are discussing, very much like what are called "population bills" and are often used in legislation that purportedly applies to an entire state (if passed by a state legislature) or the entire country. These bills are written so that they apply only to, say, a "county having more than 234,378 residents but less than 235,000 residents at the time of the 2000 census," and, hence, there is only one possible county the bill could apply to. I just isn't named.

The Voting Rights Act was written similarly, so that as a practical matter it involves only the Southern states (with a very few local exceptions outside the South,) although of course racial and other discrimination in voting had occured throughout the country, though not as recently as in the South, where it was intended to remedy more recent and more blatant methods of keeping African Americans from voting.

[ronstew]

This gets my vote for Furthest Off-Topic Thread in the History of Xmarks.

(And I am aware that there is irony implicit in my comment.)

[Panache]

This gets my vote for Furthest Off-Topic Thread in the History of Xmarks.

(And I am aware that there is irony implicit in my comment.)

And with that very appropriate comment the Mod Squad has decided that this thread has veered far from the original post and it is now time to close it

Cheers

Jamie and The Mod Squad