National: Spending mushrooms in new ‘political ecosystem’ | Associated Press

Operating with few rules and limited oversight, outside groups spent a record $1 billion to influence last year’s election. Politicians of all persuasions griped about the meddling. But few are working to change laws that ushered in an unprecedented flood of money made possible by a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that erased years of campaign finance law. Instead, political leaders and donors from both parties are preparing for the flow of outside money to intensify. New groups have formed and others are shaping plans to come back bigger and smarter ahead of the 2014 congressional elections and the 2016 presidential race. What laws do remain could become even looser as the Supreme Court considers another high-profile decision.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act is still necessary | Philadelphia Inquirer

If you want to stare into the ugly face of racial resentment, take a look at Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. His stunningly injudicious remarks about a key portion of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) laid bare the bitterness that so many conservatives harbor toward black progress. During recent oral arguments about a challenge to the law, Scalia dismissed a critical part as a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” Given that the VRA was passed to ensure that black Americans had the right to vote – after white segregationists showed they were willing to beat, jail, and kill activists to block the black ballot – it was a chilling remark. I’m so glad Scalia said exactly what was on his mind. It saves me the trouble of having to persuade you that many critics of the VRA are mossbacks who still resent the political transformation unleashed by the power of the black vote.

Alabama: Selma offers resolution keeping Section 5 part of Voting Rights Act | The Selma Times‑Journal

The Selma City Council became one of the first municipalities to publicly show their support for the continued installation of Section 5 in the Voting Rights Act when the council approved a resolution in support of the voting preclearance Tuesday. Though the resolution has no legal weight as to whether or not the city of Selma has to gain preclearance through officials in Washington D.C. when changing voting lines, polling locations or other electoral matters, the resolution shows Selma’s support of Section 5 in an official manner. “The city of Selma recognizes the fight for change and equality and understands the significance of the Voting Rights Movement and the need and support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” the resolution reads.

Editorials: Voter Registration Measure Undermines Congress’s ‘Broad Power Over Federal Elections’ | ACS

This week, the Supreme Court heard argument in Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, a case at the intersection of two lines of cases which have been prominent on the Court’s docket in recent years. The case is an example of a challenge to Arizona’s apparentlyendless cornucopia of anti-immigrant legislation. It also tests measures which, according to some conservatives, are designed to preserve the integrity of the ballot box, but according to others are calculated tosuppress the minority vote. The case involves Arizona’s Proposition 200, passed in 2004, which requires prospective Arizona voters to provide proof of United States citizenship before registration. But the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 directed the federal Election Assistance Commission to create a federal form for voter registration (current version here). That form requires applicants to provide a date of birth and other identifying information, and an oath that the applicant is a citizen, but does not require independent documentary proof of citizenship.  Federal law requires states to “accept and use” the federal form. The critical question is whether “accept and use” means that a properly completed form is sufficient for voter registration unless the state independently proves that it is fraudulent, or, rather, that the form is the beginning of an application process during which the state may freely add supplemental requirements and inquiries.

Editorials: Protecting Voting Rights Is Not “Crazy | Spencer Overton/Huffington Post

I attended yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court oral argument in the Arizona voter registration case. The argument went well generally, but Justice Alito suggested the Justices would create a “crazy” double standard by requiring that Arizona election officials accept the federal registration form. Alito’s concerns are unwarranted. Arizona chose to create two standards when it chose to add special “proof of citizenship” to register. The National Voter Registration Act requires that all states “accept and use” a single, uniform voter registration form for federal elections (states can also still use their own registration forms). The Federal Form requires that prospective voters check a box and sign an affirmation that they are U.S. citizens under penalty of perjury. Arizona, however, adopted a state law requiring “satisfactory proof” of U.S. citizenship to register, such as a birth certificate, U.S. passport, or state driver’s license that shows citizenship. As a result, Arizona rejected over 31,000 registrations that lacked its “proof of citizenship”–including Federal Forms–even though Arizona concedes it has no evidence that any of these individuals were non-citizens.

National: Argument recap: Does “may only” mean “shall only”? | SCOTUSblog

Anyone entering the Supreme Court’s chamber Monday morning expecting constitutional drama over the right to vote had to come away quite disappointed.  It took all of fifty minutes of a one-hour argument to get to any constitutional issue, most of the Justices wanted to focus on what “may only” means in a federal law, and one Justice pronounced the current federal-state voter registration regime “a crazy system.”  In an era when very heated debates over curbing voters’ rights regularly occur in political circles, there was none of that as the Court heard Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (12-71). At the center of the case is an Arizona law, approved by the state’s voters nine years ago, that requires a would-be voter seeking to register to show proof of U.S. citizenship as an additional requirement besides submitting a federal form which includes a question — enforced by possible perjury prosecution — asking whether or not one is a citizen.

Tennessee: Bill OKing use of college IDs for voting advances | Knoxville News Sentinel

The state Senate approved Thursday a bill that will make college student identification cards valid for voting despite Sen. Stacey Campfield’s contention that lawmakers were “gutting” protections against voter fraud. The bill by Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Bill Ketron was approved on a 21-8 vote and now goes to the House, where it faces a committee vote. Besides legalizing college student IDs for voting, the bill also prohibits use of library cards issued by the city of Memphis. The state Court of Appeals has ruled the Memphis cards are valid for voting and the state Supreme Court is considering an appeal of that decision, though it issued a temporary order last fall allowing the cards to be used in the November 2012, election. The eight no votes on the bill, SB125, included Campfield, R-Knoxville, and four other Republicans who objected to the college ID provision and three Democrats who objected to the Memphis library card prohibition. Ketron said the bill includes both provisions to imitate, as closely as practical, the voter ID law of Indiana, which has been upheld as valid in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

National: Arizona Voter ID Law to be Heard This Week by Supreme Court | Fox News

The Supreme Court will struggle this week with the validity of an Arizona law that tries to keep illegal immigrants from voting by demanding all state residents show documents proving their U.S. citizenship before registering to vote in national elections. The high court will hear arguments Monday over the legality of Arizona’s voter-approved requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal “Motor Voter” voter registration law that doesn’t require such documentation. This case focuses on voter registration in Arizona, which has tangled frequently with the federal government over immigration issues involving the Mexican border. But it has broader implications because four other states — Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee — have similar requirements, and 12 other states are contemplating similar legislation, officials say. The Obama administration is supporting challengers to the law.

Editorials: The Other Voting Rights Case | Spencer Overton/Huffington Post

With public attention focused on the Voting Rights Act, many have overlooked a second critical voting case that will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. The latest case involves the simple question of whether Arizona can refuse to accept a federal voter registration form. But the stakes are much higher. A victory for Arizona could accelerate a nationwide trend of political operatives attempting to manipulate election rules for political gain, and could undermine the power of Congress to protect voting rights. The National Voter Registration Act requires that all states “accept and use” a single, uniform voter registration form for federal elections. States can still use their own registration forms, but they must also accept and use the Federal Form. The purpose of the Federal Form is to increase participation by preventing states from erecting barriers to voter registration.

National: Shelby County and Congressional Power: What Does the Supreme Court Review? | CLC Blog

After the recent Supreme Court argument in the Voting Rights Act case (Shelby County v. Holder), it appears the decision may well turn on the legal standards to be applied in deciding whether Section 5 of the Act, the preclearance section, has become unconstitutional with the passage of time. The constitutional questions in the case are fundamental:  how much authority does Congress possess to choose the legislative means to combat a national evil (in this case, racial discrimination in voting), and how much authority does the Supreme Court have to overrule Congress’ choice?  The answers to those questions involve interpretation of the words “necessary and proper” and “appropriate legislation,” which are in the Constitution, and “congruent and proportional,” which are not in the Constitution but which the Supreme Court has adopted in recent years as aids in interpreting the first group of words.

Arizona: Court to rule on Arizona voting law | SCOTUSblog

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to rule on the constitutionality of a state requirement that voters must prove they are U.S. citizens before they register to vote and cast their ballots.   The Court granted review of an Arizona case in which it previously had refused the state’s request to block a lower court decision that struck down that requirement.  Arizona’s voters adopted that law when they passed “Proposition 200″ in 2004.  The Court will not rule on the case until after this year’s election, so the requirement will not be in effect next month.  (The case is Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., docket 11-71.) That was the only new case granted Monday.   In one significant denial, the Court refused to consider imposing a heavier duty on managers of employee retirement plans to justify investing plan assets in the company’s own stock.  The Court turned aside without comment two petitions on that issue.  (Gray v. Citigroup, 11-1531, and Gearren v. McGraw-Hill Companies, 11-1550.)

Arizona: Can Arizona Make You Show Your Birth Certificate to Vote? The state’s voter ID requirement goes to the Supreme Court on Monday | Slate Magazine

You’ve probably heard that the Supreme Court may be on the verge of striking down an integral part of the Voting Rights Act. That case, however, is not the only chance that the highest court will have this term to affect voting rights around the country. On Monday, the justices will hear oral arguments in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., a case that concerns Arizona’s power to impose its own conditions on top of the federal rules for voter registration. The case began as a challenge to Proposition 200, an initiative passed by Arizona voters in 2004 that requires voters to prove that they are U.S. citizens by showing a birth certificate, passport, driver’s license, naturalization certificate, or tribal document before registering and also to show identification when casting their ballots. Under the law, state election officials must reject any voter registration forms not accompanied by sufficient evidence of citizenship—even the federal form produced by Congress under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which doesn’t generally require the documents Arizona does.

Editorials: From Rosa Parks to the Voting Rights Act: making equal rights a reality for all | Barbara Boxer/theGrio

I will never forget watching President Obama unveil the statue of one of my personal heroes in Statuary Hall last month – allowing civil rights icon Rosa Parks to take her rightful place in our nation’s Capitol. At the same time, just across the street, the fundamental promise that Rosa Parks spent her whole life fighting for – equal treatment for all Americans under the law – was under attack at the U.S. Supreme Court. While Parks was being celebrated for helping to bring down “the entire edifice of segregation,” as the President eloquently put it, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was busy declaring that the basic protections provided to the American people by the Voting Rights Act were a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” His stunning remark shows clearly that our dream of justice and equality for all is still unfinished – even 57 years after Rosa Parks courageously refused to budge from her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Editorials: In the defense of our voting rights | Clyde Hughes/Journal and Courier

It is hard to imagine in a country built on the idea of democracy and one person/one vote, that there would be such a debate today over voting rights. Yet, here we are in 2013, and there is a debate over the rules of the voting game that has the potential of curtailing those rights. It seemed too ironic that we celebrated the 100th anniversary of a historic Washington, D.C., march for women’s suffrage on March 3, when days before the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on stripping the 1965 Voting Rights Act of a key provision that protects minority representation in much of the South. The National Women Suffrage Parade was held in 1913, the day before the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson, in an effort to bring attention to the issue. It would take seven years before the 19th Amendment would pass, guaranteeing women the right to vote.

National: In Supreme Court Debate on Voting Rights Act, a Dubious Use of Statistics | Nate Silver/NYTimes.com

In oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. introduced a statistical claim that he took to imply that an important provision of the Voting Rights Act has become outmoded. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which is being challenged by Shelby County, Ala., in the case before the court, requires that certain states, counties and townships with a history of racial discrimination get approval (or “pre-clearance”) from the Department of Justice before making changes to their voting laws. But Chief Justice Roberts said that Mississippi, which is covered by Section 5, has the best ratio of African-American to white turnout, while Massachusetts, which is not covered, has the worst, he said. Chief Justice Roberts’s statistics appear to come from data compiled in 2004 by the Census Bureau, which polls Americans about their voting behavior as part of its Current Population Survey. In 2004, according to the Census Bureau’s survey, the turnout rate among white voting-aged citizens was 60.2 percent in Mississippi, while the turnout rate among African-Americans was higher, 66.8 percent. In Massachusetts, conversely, the Census Bureau reported the white turnout rate at 72.0 percent but the black turnout rate at just 46.5 percent.

Editorials: The Voting Rights Act Isn’t a Racial Entitlement | Politic365

“Come, listen, all you girls and boys, I’m just from Tuckahoe; I’m going to sing a little song, My name’s Jim Crow.” These are the two opening lines to a song entitled “Jump Jim Crow” made famous by a prominent minstrel actor named Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice in 1828. When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made his derogatory, insensitive comments last Wednesday about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act from his bench, this was the first thing that popped up in my mind. What Justice Scalia and his fellow justices may need is a history lesson on why Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was put there in the first place and why it must remain there. Scalia is known for hurling verbal bombs from his seat in the chamber, but last Wednesday he crossed the line. Under Section 5, parts of the country with histories of discriminatory election practices have to ask for preclearance from the Justice Department before making any changes to their voting rules. Scalia declared, “I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.”

Editorials: Bloody Sunday, the Voting Rights Act, and the Movement of History | The New Yorker

Forty-eight years ago Thursday, five hundred or so activists gathered to march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks in the state. They didn’t make it. The march was attacked by state and local police, who were cheered on by crowds of white onlookers in an assault so brutal that it has come to be known as Bloody Sunday. Seventeen people, including future congressman John Lewis, were hospitalized. Last weekend, an array of activists and elected officials gathered in Selma, as they have for many years, to commemorate that march. But this year, the commemoration had a special significance: it came just days after the Supreme Court heard arguments in Shelby v. Holder, a case that threatens to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act, which might never have passed were it not for the aborted Bloody Sunday march and the chaotic, violent tableau playing out in Alabama. If we take nothing else from this anniversary, it’s a reminder that the history of race in this country resembles a pendulum, not an arrow.

Editorials: Voting Rights: Scalia v. minority protection | David Dante Troutt/The Great Debate (Reuters)

It’s rare to reach a point in our national sense of humor that a sitting Supreme Court justice emerges as the butt of popular jokes for comments he made during an oral argument. That’s what happened last week, however, after Justice Antonin Scalia asked lawyers defending Congress’s extension of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act whether maintaining the pre-clearance formula for nine “covered” states, which are subject to federal oversight, was really just a “racial entitlement” program and not a constitutional necessity. The media filled with guffaws about the justice’s audacity. Cartoonists ridiculed his racial insensitivity. MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow, dismissing Scalia’s words as mere willful provocation, called him a “troll.” We’d be wise to watch the name-calling. Insulting as Scalia’s words sound, there’s more to the justice’s comments than political incorrectness. For those who care about more than full and fair voting rights for minorities, responding to the perceived slight with more name-calling misses the point. Scalia was talking about far more than the Voting Rights Act. He was talking about whether the Constitution affords minorities any real protection for a range of discrimination anymore.

Editorials: Roberts, Scalia and the Voting Rights Act | Christian Century

There is a wicked irony that as the United States marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement, the country’s highest court is edging closer to gutting one of the movement’s greatest victories. As Americans everywhere celebrate the marches, martyrs, and nonviolent courage of Civil Rights activists in Selma, Birmingham, Atlanta and elsewhere, the Supreme Court seems poised to rollback the Voting Rights Act of 1965, or at least, eviscerate key provisions that make it functional legislation. The very thing for which men and women braved snapping dogs, fire hoses, lynch mobs and murder might not exist by the time this country finishes its yearlong national commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement. It is a racist country that can whitewash its civil rights heroes with celebrations while, at the same time, uprooting one of its most important legacies. Much attention has been given to Justice Antonin Scalia’s incendiary comment framing the Voting Rights Act as legislation that perpetuates “racial entitlement.” His comment drew gasps from those listening in and even a response by Justice Sonia Sotomayor from the bench. Her insight bears repeating: Voting is not a racial entitlement.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act is still needed in Texas, other states | Standard-Times

It is the misfortune of Shelby County, Ala., to challenge a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark piece of civil rights legislation, following an election when political partisans tried new, more subtle ways of suppressing minority voting participation. Voter surveys showed Republicans trailing badly among blacks and Hispanics, a gap that could potentially cost them the election, and ultimately, combined with disparate support for the Democrats among women and the young, did. Certain Republican-run jurisdictions tried a number of tactics to hold down minority voting: unnecessarily strict voter-ID laws, restrictions on early voting, bans on same-day voter registration, or understaffed or inconveniently located polling places that led to frustratingly long lines. Indeed, one Pennsylvania GOP official boasted — prematurely and mistakenly, as it turned out — that the state’s new voter-ID law had handed the election to Mitt Romney.

National: Minority Districts at Issue in Voting Rights Case | wltx.com

Voting districts designed to increase the chances of electing minority candidates, a fixture in the South, could be dismantled if the Supreme Court invalidates a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in a case that challenges Section 5 of the 1965 landmark law. The section bars all or part of 16 states from making any changes to their election procedures without first proving the changes wouldn’t discriminate against minority voters. A ruling is expected in a few months. If the court rules Section 5 is no longer necessary, states, counties and local governments subject to the provision would not have to submit new election maps to the Justice Department for review. Civil rights advocates say that would open the door for jurisdictions like many in the South – where blacks tend to vote for black candidates and whites tend to vote for white candidates – to redraw districts in a way that makes it harder for minorities to get elected. “There is no doubt in my mind that if there is no Section 5, the eight black (state) Senate districts in Alabama would disappear in the very near future,” said state Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, who holds one of those eight seats.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act still necessary | Kansas City Star

The U.S. views itself as a nation progressing ever toward the ideals of justice and liberty. In many ways it’s true. The egregious violations of civil rights that kept so many from voting are sins of another era. Long gone are poll taxes and forcing black people to recite the Declaration of Independence before being given a ballot. The bodies of those who dared register minorities to vote do not wind up in a burning car. Yet these horrors did happen, and in living memory. There is danger in congratulating ourselves too readily on the progress we have made since. It tempts us to overlook what is being done today to deny those same civil rights. In the case of certain members of the Supreme Court, the attitude has ossified into a brittle arrogance. Justice Antonin Scalia called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” One can almost hear the sneer of one who believes that it is he who is the victim of discrimination.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act appeal prods us to take up mantle of naivete | Leonard Pitts Jr./Houston Chronicle

One day, many years ago, I was working in my college bookstore when this guy walks in wearing a T-shirt. “White Power,” it said. I was chatting with a friend, Cathy Duncan, and what happened next was as smooth as if we had rehearsed it. All at once, she’s sitting on my lap or I’m sitting on hers – I can’t remember which – and that white girl gives this black guy a peck on the lips. In a loud voice she asks, “So, what time should I expect you home for dinner, honey?” Mr. White Power glares malice and retreats. Cathy and I fall over laughing. Which tells you something about how those of us who came of age in the first post civil rights generation tended to view racism. We saw it as something we could dissipate with a laugh, a tired old thing that had bedeviled our parents, yes, but which we were beyond. We thought racism was over.

National: In voting-rights case, liberal justices pitch to Kennedy | Reuters

Barely a minute into a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, liberal justices began a strategic barrage of questions that came down to this: Why should a time-honored plank of the 1965 Voting Rights Act be invalidated in a case from Alabama with its history of racial discrimination? What followed constituted a classic example of how justices can try to use oral arguments to dramatic effect and influence a swing vote justice. Key players were Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, appointees of President Barack Obama and the newest members of the bench. The likely target of their remarks: Anthony Kennedy, a conservative who is often the decisive fifth vote on racial dilemmas. “Think about this state that you’re representing,” Elena Kagan told the lawyer arguing against the law on Wednesday. “It’s about a quarter black, but Alabama has no black statewide elected officials.” Focusing on Shelby County, Alabama, the southern locale that brought the case, Sotomayor asked, “Why would we vote in favor of a county whose record is the epitome of what caused the passage of this law to start with?”

National: 5 takeaways from the Voting Rights Act arguments | Politico.com

For backers of the Voting Rights Act, Wednesday was a gloomy day at the Supreme Court. The court’s five Republican-appointed justices seemed to be leaning strongly toward a ruling striking down a provision in the 1965 law that has been a key tool for the federal government to block redistricting plans and changes to voting procedures that could interfere with or dilute minority voting. The pre-clearance process that was the subject of oral arguments before the justices applies in most or all of nine states and portions of seven others. The fact that provision applies to some parts of the country and not others was the focus of much of the jousting in court. The best many supporters of the law could muster to retain hope about the court’s ruling was that just four years ago the law defied expectations and survived intact when the justices used a kind of end-run to avoid upending the landmark civil rights statute.

Editorials: The “Law” of Perpetuating Racial Entitlement | Spencer Overton/Huffington Post

I attended the oral argument in the Voting Rights Act case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and I came away even more convinced that the Court should uphold the contested parts of the law. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires that covered states “preclear” their proposed election law changes with federal officials. Nine states plus parts of seven others are “covered,” and many of these areas are in the South. Conservatives often complain about “activist judges legislating from the bench.” But some of the more conservative Justices’ comments reveal that the fate of the Voting Rights Act should be a decision for Congress, not for the Court. Justice Scalia said he thinks Congress’s decision in 2006 to renew Section 5 was motivated by a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” It was the kind of political screed you might hear from Rush Limbaugh. Scalia’s baseless platitude could just as easily be made in the opposite direction–someone could claim Scalia wants to strike down voting protections to “perpetuate racial entitlement” whites have enjoyed for centuries. Neither assertion is appropriate in a court of law.

National: Supreme Court Likely to Strike Down the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 | The Daily Beast

Will the Supreme Court strike down what President Lyndon Johnson called “one of the most monumental laws in the entire history of American freedom”? That is the question before the justices on Wednesday, when they will hear a challenge to the constitutionality of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Enacted in 1965, it was designed to end, once and for all, the long, ugly history of racial discrimination in voting in America. The law, widely recognized as a remarkable success, was reauthorized in 2006 in a near-unanimous vote in Congress. As Americans have come to recognize, however, the only votes that really matter are those of the justices of the Supreme Court. And there’s every reason to suspect that five justices will vote to strike down one of the law’s most important provisions. That provision is known as “Section 5,” and it requires jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to obtain the approval of the Department of Justice or a special court in Washington, D.C., before adopting any change in their voting rules. If one of these covered jurisdictions wants to move away from single-member districts to an at-large election, as several tried to do to reduce the voting strength of racial minorities, or change the voting hours, that change has to be “precleared” before going into effect.

National: Key provisions of Voting Rights Act appear in jeopardy after high court argument | NBC

Central parts of an election law dating back to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, appeared to be in jeopardy Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to them. NBC’s Pete Williams reported after the oral argument, “I think it’s a safe prediction to say that the Voting Rights Act, as it now stands, is not going to survive. The question is: how far will the Supreme Court go in striking parts of it down?” Williams said what seemed to concern a majority of the justices was “the fact that the law is too backward looking.” The justices were weighing an appeal from Shelby County, Ala., asking the court to find that Congress exceeded its power when it renewed the two key sections of the law in 2006. Under Section 5 of the law, nine states, mostly in the South, but also including Alaska and Arizona, as well as dozens of counties, townships, cities, and elected boards in other states, must get permission, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington for any change in voting procedures, no matter how small, that they seek to make.

National: Supreme Court raises doubts about Voting Rights Act | USAToday

Conservative justices who hold a slim majority on the Supreme Court expressed grave doubts Wednesday that the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 — the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement — remains constitutional nearly a half century later. The justices who could be the swing votes in an eventual ruling suggested that an outdated formula built into the law now discriminates against the South, much as Southern states discriminated against black voters by erecting barriers such as poll taxes and literacy tests. “Is it the government’s submission that the citizens in the South are more racist than the citizens in the North?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who argued that the law should remain intact. Roberts noted that Massachusetts has the worst black turnout in elections when compared with whites — and Mississippi the best. Although the more liberal justices defended Section 5 of the law, which requires all or parts of 16 states to clear any voting changes with the federal government, at times the die appeared cast inside the marble courtroom. That could mean a decision by June rendering that provision unconstitutional or sending it back to Congress.

Editorials: America Is One Step Closer to Neutering the Voting Rights Act | Andrew Cohen/The Atlantic

You could say that the call was made even before the polls closed. It was made with great clarity before the end of the scheduled hour of oral argument at the United States Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holderby the folks at Scotusblog, the most popular and prestigious website covering the Court. It was presented in 140 characters or less to the world in the form of a Tweet: “Update from argument: VRA Sec 5 almost sure to be invalidated 5-4. Congress will have to reconsider the preclearance formula.” There are some instances where oral argument is useless in determining how a case will turn out. This does not figure to be one of those times. There look to be five votes to strike down the section of the law that requires officials in some jurisdictions to prove to the satisfaction of federal officials that their voting laws and redistricting rules do not discriminate against minority voters. We can be reasonably certain about this not just because of the questions and the answers offered up Wednesday but also because of the history of the Roberts Court and the Voting Rights Act. Chief Justice John Roberts, who campaigned against the law 30 years ago as a young Justice Department official, isn’t going to save the statute the way he saved the Affordable Care Act last June. Justice Clarence Thomas declared four years ago that it had to go. Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday declared the most successful anti-discrimination law in American history the perpetuation of a “racial entitlement.” Justice Samuel Alito echoed on Wednesday many of the same concerns he expressed during argument four years ago in a Section 5 case out of Texas. That’s four votes. The fifth would be Justice Anthony Kennedy, the least conservative of the five Republican appointees. Lyle Denniston, a reporter who has daily covered the Supreme Court since before the passage of the 1965 law, wrote Wednesday of some wiggle room he perceived in a comment Justice Kennedy made about how the plaintiff in the case — Shelby County, Alabama — may not be in proper position to challenge Section 5 (or the preclearance coverage formula of Section 4) because of its past record of voting discrimination.