New Jersey has gone full collectivist—especially racist—on the Democratic process. On July 2, 2026, Governor Mikie Sherrill signed the John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act.
What does that law do? According to the AI summary of BillTrack50,
This bill, known as the "John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act of New Jersey," aims to strengthen voting rights and prevent voter suppression and dilution, particularly for "protected classes" which include racial, color, or language-minority groups. It establishes the public policy of New Jersey to maximize voter participation and ensure equal opportunity for all eligible voters, especially those in protected classes, to engage in the political process. [my emphasis]
This is a reaction to the SCOTUS ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which overturned a racially gerrymandered Congressional district because it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits voter discrimination on the basis of race, color, or membership in language minority groups.
The Left’s hysterical mantra has been that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been neutered, eviscerated, weakened, or even repealed, even though no one’s rights have been weakened, compromised, or otherwise violated. We had, and still have, equal voting rights for all—the proverbial, ironclad rule “one man, one vote” principle.
No one has been restricted from “engaging in the political process,” which involves more than voting, like campaign donations, issue advocacy, campaigning for a candidate, or debating fellow citizens. (It’s interesting that Democrats would use that terminology, since it is they who would restrict people from engaging in the political process, through various campaign finance legal restrictions, and fighting to overturn pro-free speech SCOTUS rulings like Citizen’s United.)
So, what gives?
The Left has snuck in a sinister gimmick—switching the concept of voting rights from the individual to the collective. Reread the summary of the NJ law. There are no, and cannot be, “protected classes” in the United States of America. America is explicitly a nation built on the unalienable rights of the individual, not the group, and for which our government is legally bound to secure equally for all. But by the Left’s standards, certain groups or classes get the special privilege of being virtually guaranteed the election of politicians of its favored race, skin complexion, or language. (What of ideas, policy, character, or political philosophy of the candidates?) And what of the individuals who make up the dissenting minorities within those privileged classes, who have no such guarantee? What of un-”protected” classes? What of the equal protection of the laws? What is the unsaid premise behind such hideous laws as that of New Jersey, which are intended to rig certain elections in favor of certain politically privileged “protected” voting demographics? That unsaid premise amounts to, “All voters are equal, but some voters are more equal than others.”
There are no, and can logically never be, such a thing as collectivized voting rights, or collectivized rights of any kind. As the great American philosopher Ayn Rand has observed,
Any group or collective, large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members. In a free society, the rights of any group are derived from the rights of its members through their voluntary, individual choice and contractual agreement, and are merely the application of these individual rights to a specific undertaking. Every legitimate group undertaking is based on the participants' right of free association and free trade. (By legitimate, I mean: noncriminal and freely formed, that is, a group which no one was forced to join.)
The notion of collective rights (the notion that rights belong to groups, not to individuals) means that rights belong to some men, but not to others; that some men have the right to dispose of others in any manner they please and that the criterion of such privileged position consists of numerical superiority.
Nothing can ever justify or validate such a doctrine and no one ever has. Like the altruist morality from which it is derived, this doctrine rests on mysticism: either on the old-fashioned mysticism of faith in supernatural edicts, like The Divine Right of Kings or on the social mystique of modern collectivists who see society as a super-organism, as some supernatural entity apart from and superior to the sum of its individual members.
Of course, the “protected classes” are created by political fiat—i.e., by force—in which no individual member of that group was given a chance to consent or not. Thus, the “protected classes” are groups of individuals who are forced to join, whether they choose to or not.
Oh, well. It makes perfect sense from the standpoint of the Left’s long-held tribal narrative—That so-called “people of color” are an inferior human breed who need government favoritism to make it in a free society. As I noted in a Facebook post:
The violent Leftist reaction to the ruling also affirms the fundamental racial/collectivist orientation of the Left and the Democratic Party (I deliberately chose the NYT article to demonstrate this). That political block sees every issue through a lens of race. But, MEMO to the Left: dark skinned people are INDIVIDUALS, each with a mind of their own, capable of deciding FOR THEMSELVES how to vote, just like every other person. They are not some homogenous colored herd with some collective brain that they must be told they must follow.
Don’t believe the way most of the press is characterizing this ruling. This [SCOTUS] decision is a great outcome.
To demonstrate how the misrepresentation gets traction, consider the wording of these clips. From Supreme Court no ‘rubber stamp’ for Trump, Kagan says
While standing up for her conservative colleagues, Kagan did express disappointment with many of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, including what she termed the “evisceration of the Voting Rights Act.”
The link connects to a Politico report:
From Supreme Court limits Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court significantly narrowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in a 6-3 ruling Wednesday, further eroding the impact of the landmark civil rights-era law.
For decades, Section 2 — a provision that broadly outlawed discrimination in voting on the basis of race — has been interpreted to allow, and sometimes demand, the use of race-conscious data in redistricting, to protect the voting power of minorities.
Note the glaring contradiction. The “key provision” that was allegedly “significantly narrowed” was Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But it was not actually Section 2 that was narrowed. It was a particular interpretation of Section 2—an interpretation that actually twisted the Voting Rights Act “to allow, and sometimes demand, the use of race-conscious data in redistricting, to protect the voting power of minorities” rather than individuals, a provision that is not found anywhere in the actual 1965 Act. What does the Act actually say?
Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act “prohibits voting practices or procedures [like redistricting?] that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act. Most of the cases arising under Section 2 since its enactment involved challenges to at-large election schemes, but the section's prohibition against discrimination in voting applies nationwide to any voting standard, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Section 2 is permanent and has no expiration date as do certain other provisions of the Voting Rights Act. [My emphasis]
New Jersey’s new John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act, which is intended as a counterweight to the “voter suppressing” SCOTUS ruling, is actually a hideous law that actually weakens the voting rights of individuals.
Clearly, Politico’s reporting is the most accurate. Note that the Act refers to “the right of any citizen to vote,” NOT the “right” of any citizen to rig an election so someone of his race or color can win. No citizen’s right to cast his vote was denied, abridged, or “eviscerated” by the SCOTUS ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. What was eviscerated was the hideous practice of race-based redistricting—a resounding victory for the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the equal right of all citizens to vote.
Related Reading:
Woke Redistricting Madness in NJ
Did SCOTUS Promote or Reject Racism in Alabama Redistricting Case?
Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice by Craig Biddle for The objective Standard
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