Florida: DOJ eyes Florida voter roll purge of non-U.S. citizens | Politico.com

A top lawyer for the Justice Department’s civil rights division wants Florida officials to explain why they’ve unilaterally decided to purge the state’s voter rolls of non-U.S. citizens just months before a key primary in the 2012 elections — an apparent violation of provisions in the landmark Voting Rights Act. In a two-page letter, T. Christian Herren, chief lawyer for Justice’s Voting Rights division, told Florida’s secretary of state that officials’ decision to comb the rolls for foreign nationals was launched without consulting Attorney General Eric Holder or asking permission from a federal court, long-standing requirements under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  Further, Herren writes, the state hasn’t officially justified why it launched the scrub, which activists say is haphazard, subjective and disproportionately hurts minority voters. At the same time, the practice is happening less than 90 days before an upcoming statewide election, which “appears to violate the National Voter Registration Act,” Herren said.  “Please advise whether the state intends to cease the practice … so the [Justice Department] can determine what further action, if any, is necessary.”

Editorials: Voting Rights Act survives court test, but how long will it last? | Facing South

Last week, in a case closely watched around the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was constitutional. But it also exposed the fault lines that will likely push the case to the Supreme Court, posing one of the gravest threats to a provision in the Act that has been used most recently to force court review of voter ID laws in Southern states. In a 2-1 decision in the case of Shelby County v Holder, the justices upheld Section 5 of the Act, an embattled component of the landmark civil rights measure which requires all or part of 16 states — nine in the South — to get federal approval before making major changes to elections.

Editorials: The Growing Debate Over the Voting Rights Act | Colorlines

Articles on the Voting Rights Act are increasingly being filed in the “obituary” section, even though it’s less than 50 years old. Last week, a U.S. Court of Appeals decisionruled against Shelby County, Ala., which challenged the constitutionality of VRA’s Section 5. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that it was still constitutional, but the dissenting judge, Senior Circuit Judge Stephen F. Williams, asked some tough questions that will need to be resolved before the Supreme Court inevitably looks at it again (In 2009, SCOTUS punted on this issue, but expressed serious skepticism about Section 5’s vitality.) Wrote Judge Williams in his dissent:

*Why should voter ID laws from South Carolina and Texas be judged by different criteria … from those governing Indiana? A glimpse at the charts shows that Indiana ranks “worse” than South Carolina and Texas in registration and voting rates, as well as in black elected officials. This distinction in evaluating the different states’ policies is rational? *

South Carolina and Texas are “covered jurisdictions” under Section 5, while Indiana, which has a worse voting record, is not. As Williams pointed out, none of those three states are among the top ten worst offenders on voting rights. So the coverage formula needs to be reconsidered, Williams concluded. The coverage formula of Section 5 is the ankle bracelet for Southern states and counties (and a few Northern counties) that have been placed on house arrest for repeated voting rights violations, mostly throughout America’s Jim Crow era. States like Alabama, Texas and South Carolina want courts to take that ankle bracelet off.

Editorials: Supreme Court should let Voting Rights Act ruling stand | latimes.com

A federal appeals court in Washington has upheld a key part of the Voting Rights Act, one that requires states and localities with a history of discrimination against minorities to “pre-clear” changes in their election procedures with the Department of Justice or a federal court. The reasoning behind the 2-1 ruling is persuasive; Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.and other members of the Supreme Court should exercise judicial restraint by refusing to reconsider it. In an earlier, 2009 decision, the chief justice recognized that Congress has the power to enforce the 15th Amendment’s guarantee of a right to vote. But he warned ominously that the pre-clearance requirement in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and the formula under which states were subjected to it, raised “serious constitutional questions.

Voting Blogs: Formula for Change: The Shelby County Case and Section 5 | Election Academy

Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an opinion in Shelby County v Holder, voting 2-1 to uphold the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain states and jurisdictions to obtain federal approval of election changes before they can go into effect. I’ve already blogged about the effects of Section 5, especially in the context of current national fights over voter ID – and any change in Section 5 that reduces federal oversight in covered jurisdictions would be significant to the combatants on either side of that and other debates.

Editorials: Do We Still Need the Voting Rights Act? | The New Yorker

The chances to remake American law—and maybe American society—are stacking up for the Supreme Court. Next month, the Justices will render their verdicts on the Affordable Care Act and on the Arizona immigration law. The fate of affirmative action in university admissions will likely be determined by the Roberts Court in its next term, and now another blockbuster appears headed for the Justices as well. The future of the Voting Rights Act—probably the Great Society’s greatest landmark—will almost certainly be in the Court’s hands next year. The heart of the Voting Rights Act is its famous Section 5, which essentially put the South on perpetual probation. In rough terms, the law requires the states of the old Confederacy (as well as a few smaller areas outside the South) to submit any changes in their electoral law to the Justice Department for what’s known as “pre-clearance”—to make sure that the changes don’t infringe on minority voting rights. Before Section 5, states and municipalities could simply change their rules—about everything from the location of polling places to the borders of district lines—and dare civil-rights activists to sue to stop them. It was a maddening, and very high-stakes, game of whack-a-mole. As a result of Section 5, though, the Justice Department monitored these moves and made sure there would be no backsliding on voting rights.

Editorials: In Defense of Voting Rights | NYTimes.com

Racial discrimination in voting is “one of the gravest evils that Congress can seek to redress,” Judge David Tatel wrote in a crucial ruling on Friday upholding the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. In extending the law in 2006, Congress did just that, after reviewing racial bias in the nine states and parts of several others that have deep histories of discrimination. These “covered jurisdictions” had long been required by Section 5 of the law to get permission from the Justice Department or a federal court before making any changes to their voting rules. Congress found that discriminatory practices were still persistent and pervasive in those jurisdictions, and that the preclearance requirement remained necessary. In his 2-to-1 majority opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Judge Tatel explained that Congress’s judgment, supported by a legislative record of more than 15,000 pages and 22 hearings, “deserves judicial deference” because of the weight of the evidence. The ruling upheld a forceful decision by a federal district judge that reached the same conclusion in 2011.

National: Court upholds key provision of Voting Rights Act; Supreme Court review likely | The Washington Post

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a signature portion of the Voting Rights Act, setting the stage for consideration by a Supreme Court whose majority is skeptical about the law’s continued viability. On a 2 to 1 vote, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit turned down a challenge to Section 5 of the historic civil rights act, which requires states and localities with a history of discrimination to get federal approval of any changes in their voting laws. First passed in 1965, the act was most recently extended in 2006. Conservative critics have said that despite lopsided votes in both houses and the approval of President George W. Bush, lawmakers did not do enough to justify extending the Section 5 restrictions on nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of seven others. But U.S. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel said the judicial branch had no reason to second-guess Congress in reauthorizing the law.

National: Appeals court upholds key voting rights provision | Associated Press

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, rejecting an Alabama county’s challenge to the landmark civil rights law. The provision requires state, county and local governments with a history of discrimination to obtain advance approval from the Justice Department, or from a federal court in Washington, for any changes to election procedures. It now applies to all or parts of 16 states. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that Congress developed extensive evidence of continuing racial discrimination just six years ago and reached a reasonable conclusion when it reauthorized section 5 of the law at that time. The appellate ruling could clear the way for the case to be appealed to the Supreme Court where Chief Justice John Roberts suggested in a 2009 opinion that the court’s conservative majority might be receptive to a challenge to section 5.

National: After Fiery Speech, Voting Rights Amendment Is Pulled | NYTimes.com

Sometimes during lengthy floor debates on bills, interesting things happen in the witching hours. Such was the case late Wednesday, when Representative John Lewis of Georgia pushed back with a fiery speech directed at an amendment offered by Representative Paul C. Broun of Georgia that would have barred the Justice Department from using money to enforce a part of the Voting Rights Act. At around 10 p.m., Mr. Lewis, a former civil rights leader, took to the podium to denounce the amendment, which sought to end financing for enforcement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, designed to protect minority voters from being disenfranchised.

Florida: Court Rules Against Democrats on Florida Congressional Map | Roll Call

A Florida state circuit court ruled against a Democratic challenge to the state’s new Congressional map, denying a motion that the map violates the state constitution and declining to issue an injunction against the map. The news comes hours after the Department of Justice greenlighted the GOP-drawn Congressional map. This, in effect, means that Democrats are probably stuck with the map passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature earlier this year, which keeps most of the 19 Republican Members in comfortably safe districts. While Democrats could appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court, legal observers believe it is probably too late to change the 2012 lines. “The Florida Democratic Party led an unprecedented effort to ensure that the will of the people was heard in the redistricting process and to hold the Republican-led Legislature accountable to Florida’s Constitution,” FDP Executive Director Scott Arceneaux said in a statement. “We remain concerned about elements of the map and we will continue to evaluate our legal options moving forward.”

Editorials: States Shouldn’t Tamper with Voting Rights Act | New America Media

Since the beginning of 2011, states across the country have passed new laws restricting the right to vote. From voter ID to curbs on early voting and registration drives, these controversial measures could make it harder for millions of Americans to vote this year, including a disproportionate number of minority, young, and elderly voters. The photo ID law passed by Texas, for example, could prevent hundreds of thousands of eligible voters from casting a ballot, including a disproportionate number of minorities, as the data shows. Voting rights advocates are fighting these laws in the courts, but in addition to these direct attacks on the franchise, opponents are now threatening a cornerstone of American civil rights law — the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Decades ago, our nation passed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to combat discrimination in voting. It has successfully protected voters against decades of discriminatory measures that had disenfranchised African Americans, Latinos, and many other Americans. The VRA was even reauthorized in 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, and it was signed by President George W. Bush. Elected officials in both parties recognized the VRA is still needed because discrimination against minority voters continues to this day. For example, in recent years, the Justice Department forced Texas to stop discriminatory actions against voters at historically black colleges and universities.

Editorials: Could Texas Voter I.D. Case Dismantle U.S. Civil Rights Law? | Public News Service

Court watchers say a Texas case could trigger the dismantling of a decades-old civil rights law. Steven Shapiro, the American Civil Liberties Union’s national legal director, is to speak in Houston today, analyzing recent trends by the nation’s highest court. Texas is among nine mostly southern states with a history of discrimination which are required by the 1965 Voting Rights Act to get federal clearance before changing election rules. That’s why a new Texas voter-photo-ID law is on hold: It failed to win the Justice Department’s blessing. The state is now suing, and the case is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court. “The court has dropped some hints that it’s prepared to rethink the whole issue. I would like to believe that the court will not strike down what I think has been the single most successful civil rights law in American history, but I think people are appropriately anxious.”

Florida: Legislature seeks federal redistricting review even without a final map | Miami Herald

The Florida Legislature’s legal team has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to begin the process of reviewing its legislative maps for compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act, even before the Florida Supreme Court signs off on a final product. In a March 30 letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, lawyers for the House, Senate and attorney general asked the federal government to expedite its a pre-clearance of the maps so that candidates will know the district boundaries when they are required to qualify during the week the June 4. Under the Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, Florida must submit its legislative and congressional maps for approval, or pre-clearance, because five counties – Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe – have a history of discrimination against racial or language minorities. Download Preclearance_Senate

Texas: Filing Targets Texas Lawmakers’ Voter ID Communications | The Texas Tribune

In the latest development in Texas’ battle with the Obama administration over the state’s voter ID law, the U.S. Department of Justice is urging a federal court to deny the state’s request to keep certain communications between lawmakers, staff and constituents out of upcoming court proceedings. In a court filing dated Thursday, the department argued that it should be allowed to “depose those legislators believed to have had the most active role in drafting, introducing, and advocating for SB 14.” The law requires that voters furnish photo identification before casting a ballot. The filing was in response to the state’s request for a protective order, in which it argues that the communications in question should be excluded based on state privilege.

Texas: State Tries To Keep Voter ID Debate Secret | TPM

The state of Texas wants the discussions their Republican legislators had about passing a voter ID law to stay secret. Texas, which sued the federal government in an attempt to have their voter ID law approved, said in a court filing last month that “communications between members of the state legislature, communications between state legislators and their staff, and communications between state legislators and their constituents” should be protected by legislative privilege. The state also tried to prevent officials with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division from deposing legislators who supported the voter ID legislation known as SB 14.

Voting Blogs: Foreign Corporations, Non-profits and the Holding of Citizens United | Money, Politics and the Law

Days after Citizens United v. FEC was decided, President Obama famously said at his 2010 State of the Union address that he believed the decision would “open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limits in our elections.”  There may be loopholes which allow foreign corporations to donate through American entities, but not only arecorporations generally not funding super PACs, the ban on money accepted directly from foreign corporations appears to be being followed.  Last month, Rick Santorum’s super PAC returned a $50,000 donation from such a corporation. The Internal Revenue Service has also said non-profit organizations under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (which applies to charitable organizations) are banned from contributing to super PACs.  (In contrast, non-profit social welfare organizations organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Code may donate to political causes as long as that is not their main activity.  Professor Rick Hasen has more on 501(c) non-profit donations after Citizens United)  This ban from the IRS led to Mitt Romney’s super PACrefunding a $100,000 check from a 501(c)(3) charity. But here’s the important question from a legal standpoint: under the holding of Citizens United, should either of these bans be constitutional?

Editorials: The GOP Assault on the Voting Rights Act | Ben Adler/The Nation

Last week the Department of Justice denied preclearance to Texas’s law requiring voters to present photo identification under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires states and jurisdictions with a demonstrated history of passing discriminatory election laws to get approval from the DOJ for any change to laws governing the time, place or manner in which an election is conducted. Within days Texas filed a challenge in federal court arguing that Section 5 is unconstitutional. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott maintains that the federal government exceeded its authority and violated the Tenth Amendment when it passed the measure. Conservative opponents of civil rights are eager to see that challenge succeed. Writing in National Review—which opposed the civil rights movement—vice chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights and conservative scholar Abigail Thernstrom argues that Section 5 is outdated. National Review’s evolution on the subject is the standard conservative slither on civil rights. First you oppose it. Then, when society has evolved and you look like a bigot, you accept it. Then, as soon as humanly possible, you argue it was necessary at the time but no longer is.

Editorials: Bet on the feds to throttle the Mississippi’s new voter ID law | The Clarion-Ledger

Set aside for a moment your actual opinion of whether Mississippi’s new voter ID laws are a necessary safeguard against voter fraud and consider only the fact that 2012 is year in which an incumbent Democrat is seeking re-election to the White House. Consider, too, that Democratic President Barack Obama appointed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to lead the U.S. Justice Department, which continues to hold tremendous sway over election law in Mississippi through our state’s undeniable status as a “covered jurisdiction” under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “Covered jurisdiction” states, counties and municipalities cannot implement voting law changes without federal “preclearance” by the Justice Department.

National: The Voting Wars Could Get Bloody | TPM

The key electoral battle in 2012 might be less about who you cast a ballot for, than about whether you get to cast a ballot at all. Yes, the voting wars are heating up just in time for the 2012 elections. And between the Justice Department’s opposition to voter ID laws in two states and several other state and federal cases brought against such laws by various civil rights organizations, the battles are only just beginning. The Justice Department has already blocked restrictive voting laws in South Carolina, Florida and Texas, and state suits in response may see the Supreme Court take up a direct challenge to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act this year.

Texas: State Attorney General Seeking to Challenge Voting Rights Act | ABC News

Texas on Wednesday asked a federal panel weighing its photo ID requirement for voters to allow its attorneys to challenge the constitutionality of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, taking a direct shot at the statue that has blocked the state from enforcing tightened voter requirements. In a filing to a three-judge panel in Washington, Texas asked to submit a petition charging that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act “exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress and conflicts with Article IV of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment.” As a state with a history of voter discrimination, Texas is required under that section of the Voting Rights Act to get advance approval of voting changes from either the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court in Washington. The provision dates from 1965, but was upheld in 2006 after Congress found that discrimination still exists in the areas where it was historically a problem.

National: Groups Wage Battle Over Voter ID Laws | Roll Call

For Rock the Vote volunteers who roam rock concerts and college campuses looking for students to register, the typical dress code is jeans and a T-shirt.
But this year, many Rock the Vote organizers have traded their college clothes for suits and ties. That’s because they’re spending almost as much time in the courtroom fighting new restrictions on voters as they are out registering voters. Rock the Vote is one of several dozen organizations, from civil rights groups to Latino, labor and women’s groups, that have launched a multipart campaign to push back against new registration rules for voters that have been enacted in many states. The fight over voter access has triggered state-level lobbying, ballot initiatives and lawsuits, and the issue will likely land before the Supreme Court.

National: Will the Courts Protect Voting Rights? | The Nation

Last week brought two rare pieces of good news for voting rights advocates. In Wisconsin, Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan granted a temporary injunction, requested by the League of Women Voters, preventing implementation of the state’s photo identification requirement for voting. Meanwhile, the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reaffirmed a 1982 consent decree preventing the Republican National Committee from intimidating minority voters.  Unfortunately, voter intimidation and disenfranchisement will still occur, in Wisconsin and throughout the country.

Florida: DOJ Opposes Florida Laws On Voter Registration Groups, Early Voting | TPM

The Justice Department objected late Friday to new provisions of Florida election law which place strict regulations on third-party voter registration groups and cut down on the early voting period. DOJ alleged in a court filing that Florida was unable to prove the new provisions were not discriminatory under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. “As to the third-party voter registration and early voting changes enacted… respectively, the United States’ position is that the State has not met its burden, on behalf of its covered counties, that the two sets of proposed voting changes are entitled to preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” according to a court filing.

National: Voting Rights Act: Is Obama letting the civil rights law die before the Supreme Court kills it? | Slate

When Georgia’s Republican leaders redrew the state’s election-district maps last year, Democrats and minorities instantly cried foul. In an increasingly diverse state where 47 percent of voters chose Obama in 2008, the new maps looked likely to hand the GOP 10 of the state’s 14 seats in Congress. Perhaps even more significantly, they were drawn so as to give Republicans a shot at a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the state legislature, allowing them to pass constitutional amendments unilaterally. They achieved this in part by “packing” the state’s black voters (who overwhelmingly vote Democratic) into a handful of districts in order to make others more solidly white (and Republican).

Fortunately for the state’s Democrats, federal law seemed to offer a time-tested remedy. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark civil rights bill passed in 1965 to crack down on poll taxes and other discriminatory practices, requires Georgia and a number of other Southern states to get federal approval for any changes to their voting laws. Any that harmed minorities’ chances of fair representation were to be thrown out. And that’s exactly what Georgia Democrats expected Obama’s Department of Justice to do with Republicans’ new maps. Just two years earlier, it had invoked Section 5 to block two Georgia voter-verification laws. Liberals gleefully predicted the Republican gerrymanders would likewise be “DOA at the DOJ.”

Voting Blogs: New Federal Lawsuit Provides U.S. DoJ Golden Opportunity to Challenge Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions Under Section 2 of Voting Rights Act | BradBlog

Last September’s hearings before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights established that polling place photo ID restriction laws have nothing to do with eliminating “voter fraud.” They are, instead, part of what Judith Browne Dianis, a civil rights litigator at The Advancement Project, described at the time as the “largest legislative effort to roll back voting rights since the post-Reconstruction era” — part of the partisan, multi-state effort by the billionaire Koch brothers-funded, Paul Weyrich co-founded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-fueled GOP exercise in voter suppression. Her testimony established, yet again, that such laws have a disparate impact upon minorities, the poor, the elderly and students (all of whom happen to have the unfortunate tendency of voting Democratic).

Editorials: Texas Redistricting: Deal or No Deal? | Roll Call

The Texas attorney general announced both parties reached a compromise map in the Texas redistricting case today — hours before the court-mandated deadline to keep the April 3 primary. But the majority of the plaintiffs say there’s no compromise yet, and a federal court in San Antonio suggested it agrees. Texas will pick up four House seats in 2012 because of population growth, mostly in the Hispanic community. Lone Star State GOP lawmakers passed an aggressive new Congressional map last year, but the plan has been stuck in court as the state seeks pre-clearance approval under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. State Attorney General Greg Abbott’s alleged compromise map is somewhat similar to the plan passed by the Texas GOP Legislature last year but includes an additional Hispanic-majority seat in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Alabama: Justice Department move might propel Shelby County, Alabama voting case to U.S. Supreme Court | al.com

The chances that Shelby County’s challenge to the Voting Rights Act will make it to the U.S. Supreme Court have improved since the Justice Department announced it is rethinking its position in a similar North Carolina case. In a Jan. 30 letter to a lawyer for a group of voters in Kinston, NC., the assistant attorney general for civil rights said the agency has new information and will reconsider its 2009 objection to the city’s switch to nonpartisan elections. Assuming the Justice Department formally withdraws that objection, Kinston’s related lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act goes away.

Alabama: One-man Washington nonprofit helps steer Shelby County voting case | al.com

Shelby County’s name is on the case, but a one-man Washington, D.C., legal defense fund with pri­vate donors is the driving force be­hind one of the most important constitutional challenges to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Project on Fair Representa­tion is the nonprofit run by Ed­ward Blum, a one-time congres­sional candidate in Texas with two decades of experience in litigation over affirmative action, redistrict­ing and voting rights. After the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 expressed some reservations about the constitutionality of Sec­tion 5 of the Voting Rights Act but no official ruling, Blum found in Shelby County a potential litigant to try again: a local government that had grown weary of the bur­dens of the Voting Rights Act and a willingness to take that complaint all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. So the Shelby County Commission agreed to let Blum’s Project on Fair Representation hire the lawyers and file the case that alleges two key parts of the landmark civil rights law are outdated and no longer necessary.