Conservatives tend to support an originalist approach to constitutional debates, but George Will makes an exception in his Newsweek response to the Supreme Court?s recent 8-1 ruling in a voting right case.
Will supports the position of the lone dissenter, Justice Clarence Thomas, who believes Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary:
The 15th Amendment guarantees the right to vote and grants Congress the power to enforce the right with “appropriate” legislation. Thomas argued that Section 5 is now inappropriate: “Punishment for long past sins is not a legitimate basis for imposing a forward-looking preventative meas-ure that has already served its purpose.”
Thomas, refusing deference to a branch of government that has not done its duty, said: “The burden remains with Congress to prove that the extreme circumstances warranting Section 5’s enactment persist today.” His position constitutes the sort of judicial activism on which constitutional government depends?a determination to enforce institutional boundaries on the political branches that have a perennial itch to overstep them.
