Subtle rumors that the Sixth Circuit Court had purposefully ruled to uphold same-sex marriage bans in order to force the hand of the Supreme Court quickly surfaced. This was fueled in part by Judge Martha C. Daughtrey, the sole dissent in the 2-1 vote of the Sixth Circuit Court decision, who wrote that this may have in fact been the majority’s ulterior motive because the “correct result” of the court’s ruling should be sufficiently “obvious.” 

The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Voting Rights Act last week, only two weeks after ruling that an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is unconstitutional. The Court’s decision last Tuesday and the idea underpinning it – that voter suppression of ethnic minority and poor voters is no longer an issue that warrants the same federal protections as it once did – sits at odds with their ruling on the Arizona voter ID law.

On Tuesday, President Obama expressed “disappointment” in the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which all but eviscerated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and called upon Congress “to pass legislation to ensure every American has equal access to the polls.” Other critics of the ruling, however, were not so temperate in their characterization of what could prove to be a game changer for ongoing efforts to counter voter suppression.