Today provides a moment for reflection on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – born 81 years ago on this day. It is also a moment of intense anguish for the survivors and those continuing to suffer in the wake of the tragic earthquake in Haiti.

Throughout his life, Dr. King was committed to achieving equality, addressing discrimination and resolving poverty. These were goals that he set out to achieve both domestically and abroad. In a December 11, 1964 Nobel Lecture speech, Dr. King observed that:

Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation; no individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for the least of these. In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor, because both rich and poor are tied together in a single garment of destiny-for life is interrelated and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich.

Given the searing experience of Hurricane Katrina, it’s hauntingly disturbing to now witness the intensifying humanitarian crisis unfolding in Haiti. We have a responsibility and a duty to do all that we can to alleviate the suffering unfolding in this weak and vulnerable nation. Before the earthquake, Haiti remained one of the least-developed countries in the Americas with a literacy rate of just 53 percent and nearly 80 percent of the population living in poverty. These numbers are likely to worsen given the total collapse of the country’s infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and government buildings. A long road of rebuilding and recovery lies ahead.

The speed with which we mobilized an aid package to help bailout corporations in the midst of our national economic crisis should shape and inform the relief we now provide to Haiti. Our neighbors in Haiti, just 600 miles from the shore of southern Florida desperately need immediate relief and meaningful intervention. Our own recent experience from Hurricane Katrina should serve as a call to arms and propel us to deploy every resource necessary to bring immediate relief and aid to those suffering in Haiti. Dr. King would have certainly compelled as much.

For more information on how you can provide assistance: The Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) has links to various lists of organizations that are responding to the earthquake or Global Giving has specific disaster-recovery projects listed that can be supported.

In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court recognized that “[t]he historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable.”

Today’s ruling, which was joined by seven other Justices, recognizes Section 5′s critical importance in addressing voting discrimination faced by citizens throughout our country.

“The entire thrust of LDF’s argument was that Section 5 remains critical to our democracy and, however grudgingly, the Court acknowledges that in its opinion today. In an unusually harmonious opinion, today’s decision upholds the constitutionality of an essential core protection in our democracy,” said John Payton, LDF Director-Counsel.

Payton observed that “Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act protects and shields the rights of minority voters from discrimination. Section 5 has long been symbolic of our nation’s long and unsteady march toward greater political equality. Without its protections, our nation would unnecessarily face the grave risk of significant backsliding and retrenchment in the fragile gains that have been made.”

The Court’s ruling today ensures that minority voters will continue to have the safeguards provided by the Section 5 preclearance process.

The Court expanded the number of places that can seek to “bailout” or exempt themselves from preclearance. However, no Section 5-covered jurisdiction can do so without demonstrating a clean bill of health for a ten-year period.

The bailout provision has proven workable and achievable for those jurisdictions that have sought it. It remains to be seen how the Court’s interpretation of the bailout provision will impact enforcement of Section 5. If, for any reason, today’s ruling renders Section 5 unworkable in the future, Congress could always amend the statute.

“The utility district brought this case to tear out the heart of the Voting Rights Act. Today, it failed. The Voting Rights Act remains one of Congress’s greatest legacies,” said Debo P. Adegbile, LDF Director of Litigation, who argued the case on behalf of Appellee-Intervenors.

In the petition, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Society, California NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. argue that in order to protect the fundamental rights of all Californians, a higher standard is required to overturn the right to marry. Minority communities cannot be stripped of their fundamental rights by a simple majority vote.

“We would be making a grave mistake to view Proposition 8 as just affecting the LGBT community,” said Eva Paterson, president of the Equal Justice Society. “If the Supreme Court allows Proposition 8 to take effect, it would represent a threat to the rights of people of color and all minorities.”

The petition filed by Raymond C. Marshall of Bingham McCutchen and Prof. Tobias Barrington Wolff of University of Pennsylvania Law School on behalf of leading African American, Latino, and Asian American groups echo the arguments made in the November 5 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights: Proposition 8 prevents the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of enforcing the equal protection rights of minorities.

The California Constitution requires that any measure attempting to revise the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by a two-thirds vote of the legislature before being submitted to the voters. Proposition 8 was not approved through that constitutionally required process.

“Proposition 8 contradicts the most basic protection guaranteed by the California Constitution, which is the right to equal protection of the laws,” said John Trasviña, President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “We can not allow the Constitution to sanction discrimination against one group of people.”

“Direct democracy cannot override the California Constitution, which requires more than a majority vote to deprive a minority group of their fundamental rights,” said John A. Payton, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

“We cannot become a society that picks and chooses who is entitled to equal rights,” said Alice A. Huffman, president of the California State NAACP. “We should include all people from all walks of life in the entitlement to all freedoms now enjoyed by the majority of our population As a civil rights advocate, we will continue the fight of eliminating roadblocks to freedom.”

“Consistent with core equal protection principles, minority communities must not be stripped of their fundamental rights by bare majority rule,” said Karin Wang, Vice-President of Programs for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. “California went down this path before when the majority population chose to bar interracial marriages involving an unpopular minority: Asian immigrants. The state Constitution exists exactly for this reason – to protect the fundamental rights of minority communities.”

“Let’s not forget the landmark 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia, which allowed two people of different races to marry,” said Paterson of the Equal Justice Society. “People then believed it was acceptable to keep Mildred Loving from marrying a white man because of their ideas of who should marry whom. We must not return to those times.”

The court has precedent for invalidating an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court overruled an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the “Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States.” That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California’s courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state’s constitution.

A copy of the writ petition is available here.