This morning’s U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively striking down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote is shameful and a major setback to democracy.

Fifty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and I believe as he did that the “arc of the moral universe… bends toward justice.” But today’s decision twists that bend in the wrong direction.

This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post's Spanish-language site, Voces, by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. Read "El Cambio en Nuestras Comunidades se Logra Con Unión y Determinación" on The Huffington Post. 

What is often missing from the highly politicized discussions about Arizona’s immigration policies and Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s law enforcement practices are the stories of people who live with those policies and practices on a day-to-day basis. People like 15-year-old Carmen of Tempe, Ariz. Carmen’s story helps us see that change is not only possible, but becoming more real every day.  

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

With a recent poll showing Paul Penzone, Joe Arpaio’s challenger for Maricopa County Sheriff, trailing the longtime incumbent by only a few points, Penzone’s campaign got a shot in the arm yesterday when a coalition of Latino and progressive activists and the Adiós Arpaio campaign delivered more than 21,571 new voter registrations to the county. The effort was led by the Campaign For Arizona’s Future, and on Thursday, a crowd wearing “Adiós Arpaio” T-shirts announced the bonanza of newly registered voters at the Wells Fargo building in downtown Phoenix, where Sheriff Arpaio’s suite of offices is located.  

After a hot and busy summer, Union Summer intern Olivia Montesano is now back to pursuing a master’s degree in justice studies with a heavy focus on community organizing at Arizona State University. She’s back to reading about people around the world organizing their communities to make a difference.

Adela de la Torre, communications manager at the National Immigration Law Center, sends us this. 

The civil rights issues at the heart of S.B. 1070, Arizona’s notorious racial profiling law, finally had their day in court Tuesday. After more than two years of legal challenges mounted by our civil rights coalition and the federal government, we, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), MALDEF and others, presented evidence of what we all already know: S.B. 1070 was written with the intent to discriminate against Latinos and other people of color. This evidence was introduced as part of a request that the district court consider additional legal grounds that were not before the U.S. Supreme Court when it determined that section 2B of S.B. 1070, which forces police officers to demand “papers” of those they suspect are in the country without proper authorization, should be allowed to go into effect.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Hundreds of activists gathered at the state Capitol Thursday morning in Phoenix to denounce Gov. Jan Brewer for the appalling executive order she issued on Wednesday, which was the day the Obama administration's Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals went into effect. The federal policy change allows the young people known as "DREAM Act kids" or "DREAMers" to stay in the country and apply for work permits provided they meet certain conditions. An estimated 80,000 Arizonans who were brought into the country illegally as children may be eligible for the program, and many have been excitedly lining up at federal immigration offices around the state to get the forms and instructions. 

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Opening arguments were heard on Thursday morning in a class-action lawsuit brought by the Arizona ACLU charging that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has been engaging in a shocking pattern of profiling and harassment of Hispanic residents. The suit could put S.B. 1070 on the skids, as the ACLU has produced several e-mails from then-Sen. Russell Pearce (often cited as the main architect of S.B. 1070) expressing paranoid racist vitriol. The plaintiffs say the e-mails demonstrate that the infamous "show your papers" law was indeed racially motivated, as opponents of the law have charged from the beginning.

Pablo Alvarado, president of the National Day Laborers’ Organizing Network, says in an op-ed in yesterday's Miami Herald that there is reason to believe attitudes are changing against the "Arizona approach" to immigration policies. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the racial profiling provision of S.B. 1070, Alvarado says President Obama's announcement to halt the deportation of those young immigrants who would be eligible for U.S. residency under the terms of the DREAM Act illustrates this shift in thinking.

In a strongly worded 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today rejected most of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant law known as S.B. 1070. But the justices upheld a key portion that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), say is:

The law’s most dangerous provision, which gave the green light to discrimination and racial profiling. 

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

About 400 anti-S.B. 1070 protesters gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., this morning as the justices heard opening arguments on the legality of the controversial 2010 Arizona immigration enforcement law.

Meanwhile today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said S.B. 1070 and laws like it "are tearing families apart and destroying the hopes and dreams of children and making it hard for workers to exercise their most fundamental rights."