They didn't, they said the criteria needs to be updated, not use the same statistics it's been using for the past 40+ years. No one argues that there's not still racial discrimination going on, but that the places where it is happening might have changed. Not to mention the way it's happening is changing too: instead of blocking people based on color, they're blocking them based on having a proper state id (instead of being able to produce other forms of showing residence).

mmhmm, but from what little I know, Congress is supposed to be able to redraft the criteria for that section, and aren't they mostly Repub?

Like, I'd really really be up for updating it, but with whom will have their hands on it, it really doesn't look like a clean affair, and its disconcerting thinking about how that might effect elections

Well, I'm not encouraged by the fact that Congress will have to update it and that they basically tried to avoid updating it by simply renewing it the last time.

Honestly I think the Republicans are going to be in very serious trouble if they don't change soon. The more extreme members refuse to budge on things like immigration reform and similar issues, which will loose them a lot of the Hispanic votes.

Now have the opportunity to alter the Voting Rights Act in a way that's more fairly applied, but if they screw it up, no one's going to vote for them.

Both parties are in serious trouble, because both are becoming entrenched along party lines. The republican party is shifting more to the right, the democrats more to the left, leaving those in the center like me without a truly representative party.

Most Republicans want immigration reform, they just have different priorities than the democrats do. From where I stand it seems the Republicans want to enforce strict border control and kick the can on the people already in the US down the road. The Democrats want to deal with the people already here now and kick the can down the road on border control. We need both border control AND some form of normalization for the immigrants already here. Hopefully we get such a deal, but I am not overly optimistic.

Voting rights in congress has more opportunity to damage democrats than republicans. The act from 1965 skated by on inertia, not a critical reassessment of the act. They basically wanted to keep the southern states voting districts under federal regulation in perpetuity based on racism in the 1960s. States like texas are now majority non-white, but yet are still federally regulated based on white segregationists in the 1960s. States like florida and virginia (which were swing states in the last election) are also covered under this act. Try to tell people in these states that they are incapable of drawing their own voting districts because people in the 50 years ago were racist and they will go over to the republican party. The democrat party is already seen as having pathological hatred of the southern states, and this would not help them win votes in any of them.

Congress is both parties really. The Senate and House of Representatives make up the Congress. The Senate is controlled by the Democrats. The House is controlled by Republicans. So neither party controls all of congress, whether, we have a divided congress.

I wouldn't hold my breath for any earthshaking rulings on gay marriage. I could see them striking down part of DOMA, and prop 8 in the case of California. I do not see them issuing a sweeping ruling covering all states though.

On the Voting Rights act though, that has needed to be changed. Congress has just been skating by on inertia instead of examining who actually needs to be regulated in that fashion. If it goes back to congress it will likely become a big battle between the house and the senate, so I don't see anything harsh coming from it.