Like gleeful children released from detention, officials in Texas, Alabama, North Carolina and other states vowed to enact new voting restrictions just hours after the Supreme Court did their bidding and neutered the Voting Rights Act (pdf).

Free at last, they might as well have said.

‘[Attorney General] Eric Holder can no longer deny Voter ID in Texas,’ tweeted Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott soon after Tuesday’s decision.

Indeed, states like Texas and hundreds of communities nationwide now have unfettered authority to impose the kitchen sink of conservative-bred election changes that potentially disenfranchise minority voters, which is why the measures had been blocked by the Voting Rights Act before the court stripped the law of its key enforcement tool on Tuesday.

New voter-identification requirements, cuts in early balloting, the end of same-day registration and Sunday voting before Election Day (‘souls to the polls’), gerrymandered districts, relocated polling places and more are now all in play.It’s all happening in this open season on minority voting power.

How did America’s greatest civil rights achievement, a law that had never lost a court challenge in 48 years, become vulnerable?

It began in June 2009. While many of us were still distracted by the wonderment of America’s first black president, […]