Word: presley
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...testament to black political power. White Southern Democrats, whose re-election depends on combining huge black voting majorities with much smaller shares of the white vote, came down in Thomas' favor after polls showed that large majorities of African Americans supported him. Among them was Lawrence C. Presley, the only black county commissioner of Etowah County, Ala. "I felt that we needed a black to take over that spot on the Supreme Court," says Presley. "We felt here in the Deep South that that was a very vital issue...
...ruling came in Presley's case against four white members of the Etowah County commission. For decades these officials had one prime function: supervising the county road budget, with each determining how funds would be spent within his district. In 1986 the commission settled a long-running voting-rights lawsuit by agreeing to expand the body from four to six members; they also agreed that the two new members would have the same duties as the four holdovers. Presley was elected from a newly created 65% black district in the county seat of Gadsden. Eight months later, the four white...
...Presley filed a federal suit, charging that the holdovers had violated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That provision requires officials in the covered states to "preclear" changes they want to make "with respect to voting rights" with the U.S. Justice Department before putting them into effect. The department can overrule the changes if it finds that they pose a threat to minority voting strength. Presley contended he needed control over a portion of the road budget as a bargaining chip with other commissioners for such things as funding for improved health care for indigent people...
...court's majority, joined by Thomas, ruled against Presley on the ground that even though the resolution had undercut Presley's authority as a commissioner, it had no direct impact on voting procedures. The decision drew a stinging dissent from Justice John Paul Stevens, who pointed out that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act had been adopted specifically because "recalcitrant white majorities could be expected to devise new stratagems to maintain their political power if not closely scrutinized." The court's narrow interpretation of the law, says Lani Guinier, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school, could...
...what's more. the characters annoy the viewer to the point of nausea. Chanticleer comes across as a fowl impersonation of Elvis Presley. Even his nickname is "The King". There is a ditzy Betty Boop love interest, and there is the smutty agent--the movie's only redeeming aspect--with voice hilariously rendered by Sorrell Booke, better known as "Boss Hogg" on the "Dukes of Hazzard." The writer even flirts with political correctness when he includes a pseudo feminist mouse...