What’s Wrong with the Voting Rights Act?

In Abigail Thernstrom’s new book, “Voting Rights–And Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections,” she suggests several grave problems with the VRA. There’s an interesting review of the book over at TNR’s The Book, including this summary of Thernstrom’s argument:

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 “was one of the great moments in the history of American democracy” and “the death knell of the Jim Crow South.” Over the years, however, it has been twisted into an engine of racial rigging and polarization. This has been accomplished by misguided judges, unwise and self-serving congressional Republicans (as well as Democrats), and liberal ideologues in civil rights groups and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Indeed, those forces have transformed the Voting Rights Act into “a brake on true racial progress today.”

I disagree that the Voting Rights Act’s usefulness or uses are over and done, but I do think that Thernstrom’s point that the act has led to some major problems with gerrymandering  impeding racial integration is a valid one. The book sounds like an interesting, well-thought-out one, albeit one I may not fully agree with.