Editorials: A Critical Look at Holder’s Texas ‘Gambit’ | Wall Street Journal

Dusting off a little-used section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Attorney General Eric Holder made headlines last week when he asked a federal court in San Antonio to take back control of Texas’s voting rules. The move is thought to be a prelude to a broader battle with Republican states following a landmark Supreme Court ruling that gave GOP regions more autonomy over their election laws. But Mr.  Holder’s fight with Texas may not be worth it, at least according to University of California-Irvine law professor Richard Hasen, an electoral law expert who supports tougher voting-rights protections. The best thing that can be said about the Justice Department’s legal strategy is that it’s better than nothing, he said. While the Supreme Court freed nine states and several counties from having to get permission before making changes to voter rules, it left intact Section 3 of the Voting Rights Act. Under that provision, a court can impose special oversight of a jurisdiction. It’s a process known as “bailing in.”

New York: New York City Vows to Provide Bengali Ballots after Lawsuit Filed | India West

The New York City Board of Elections said it would translate ballots in Queens, New York, into Bengali for the Sept. 10 primary election. It is the first new language added in more than a decade, election officials said. The addition of Bengali-language ballots at 60 polling sites in Queens comes nearly two years after the federal government ordered the city to provide language assistance to South Asian minorities under a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The federal government had ordered the city’s English ballots to be translated into Spanish, and more recently Chinese, in 1993 and Korean in 2001, The New York Times reported.  The move by election officials comes after the New York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a lawsuit July 2 against the board for failing to comply with the language assistance provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act.

National: Obama Reassures Leaders on Enforcing Voting Rights | New York Times

Days after his administration filed suit against Texas to protect minority voters, President Obama told civil rights leaders and local officials on Monday that the federal government would vigorously enforce voting rights in the country despite a Supreme Court ruling against a core section of a landmark 1965 law, several participants said after a White House meeting. “The president said that the Voting Rights Act is not dead, it’s not even critical, it’s just wounded,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist and MSNBC talk show host. “He was very reassuring,” Mr. Sharpton added. Mr. Obama met with the group for about 40 minutes, and administration officials led by the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., met with the group for a bit longer. The administration was addressing what Mr. Sharpton described as the civil rights community’s “alarm” over the court’s 5-to-4 vote last month. In that case, Shelby County v. Holder, the majority struck down as outdated and unnecessary the law’s language requiring that the federal government review and clear any changes in election laws in nine states, most of them in the South.

National: Obama vows fight on voting rights | Washington Times

President Obama told a gathering of civil rights leaders at the White House on Monday that his administration is committed to restoring legal protections for minority voting, and a Florida legislator who attended the meeting said his colleagues are motivated by the knowledge that slain black Florida teen Trayvon Martin would have been eligible to vote next year. The president and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assured the group that they will work on a legislative response to the Supreme Court’s decision in June that struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, a key section that the administration said was needed to combat discrimination in targeted states and districts. That provision required states with a history of voting discrimination to submit any changes on election law to the Justice Department for approval.

National: Obama pledges to strengthen Voting Rights Act | USAToday

President Obama told civil rights leaders Monday that his administration would work to strengthen the Voting Rights Act in light of a Supreme Court decision striking down a key provision. After a White House meeting with more than a dozen attorneys, state lawmakers and civil rights activists, Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett tweeted that the administration wants “to ensure every eligible American has the right to vote.” The meeting came a month after the Supreme Court struck down the provision that required the federal government to pre-clear changes to voting systems in states that have a history of racial discrimination, mostly in the South.

National: Holder sees defense of civil rights as his legacy | The Washington Post

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was getting ready to give a speech at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin when he glanced up at a giant video screen where old photographs of Johnson were being displayed. He was taken aback by what he saw. In an image that captured the historic day the president signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a young woman was standing nearby whose face Holder recognized immediately: his late sister-in-law, Vivian Malone, one of two young students who had walked past Gov. George Wallace in 1963 to integrate the University of Alabama.

National: New war begins: Beating voting rights bigots | Salon.com

With North Carolina GOP Gov. Patrick McCrory ready to sign the most restrictive voting rights bill in generations (though he may not know what’s in it), one influential Republican is backing Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to use a creaky but powerful section of the Voting Rights Act to challenge a similar law in Texas. “The [Justice] department’s actions are consistent with the Voting Rights Act,” Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a VRA reauthorization co-sponsor in 2007, told The Hill last week. “Increased litigation will be one of the major consequences of the court’s decision as courts will have to litigate more allegations of voter discrimination.” Here’s hoping Holder makes North Carolina his next target, if and when McCrory signs the bill. There’s almost no chance he won’t. He’s promised to – although he then had to admit he didn’t know exactly what was in it. McCrory denied it restricted voter registration – although it eliminates same-day voter registration and pre-registration by 17-year-olds who’ll turn 18 by Election Day – insisting “there is plenty of opportunity for voter registration — online, offline, through many methods.”

Wisconsin: Federal ruling highlights Wisconsin voter ID debate | The Badger Herald

After the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on voting rights, Wisconsin activists are waiting to see how the decision could affect ongoing legal disputes on voter ID laws in the state. In its June 25 decision in the Shelby County v. Holder case, the Supreme Court redacted Section IV regarding the federal oversight of states with historic issues with voting rights and disenfranchisement of voters, of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in a 5-4 decision. While this decision is monumental for the mostly southern states subject to federal approval to change voter laws, Wisconsin is waiting to see the effect it will have on its own voter ID law. Wisconsin’s voter ID law, which requires voters to have specific photo identification to vote, was ruled constitutional by the 4th District Court of Appeals on May 30, despite a challenge by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin that it violated the state Constitution. “In sum, the League has presented no basis to conclude that it has met its heavy burden in this facial constitutional challenge,” according to the court’s opinion.

Editorials: In Going After Texas Voting Policies, Holder Takes John Roberts at His Word | Garrett Epps/The Atlantic

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in 2007, “is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” We will now find out whether Roberts’s anti-racist rhetoric is serious, or is a code phrase meaning that the era of civil rights is now over by judicial fiat. On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would ask a federal District Court to require the state of Texas to obtain prior permission before implementing its voter ID and other new voting laws. As is widely known, the Supreme Court in June gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act–the “preclearance” requirement that obliged states and local governments with long racist histories to obtain advance permission for changes in their voting systems.  Roberts himself wrote the 5-4 opinion. Most news accounts focused on his blithe statement that (in the era of Trayvon Martin and Paula Deen) “our Nation has made great strides,” and thus need not suspect Southern state governments of racism.

Editorials: No, Congress Won’t Fix The Voting Rights Act. Here’s Why. | TPM

Ever since the Supreme Court gutted a centerpiece of the Voting Rights Act and threw it back in Congress’s lap, lawmakers in both parties have engaged in happy talk about the prospects of patching the provision used to proactively snuff out voter discrimination against minorities in the state and local governments where it’s most prevalent. But it’s looking less and less likely that a fix will be agreed to because Republicans have little to gain and a lot to lose politically if they cooperate. “Ain’t gonna happen,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said late last week, according to Roll Call. A recent House Judiciary Committee hearing made clear that Republicans have little to no interest in reconstituting the Voting Rights Act. Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-TX) opened by emphasizing that even after the Supreme Court’s decision, “other very important provisions of the Voting Rights Act remain in place.”

North Carolina: Justice Kennedy Has To Answer For North Carolina | Esquire

To become better citizens “we must know and understand our heritage and our history, its triumphs and its mistakes,” Justice Anthony Kennedy told an audience last Monday at the Chautauqua Institution in Upstate New York in a speech that, sadly, was neither recorded nor transcribed for posterity. Four days later, as if on cue, the governor of the relentlessly regressive state of North Carolina showed the justice who last month helped scuttle the heart of the Voting Rights Act exactly how some intend to interpret his lecture. Pat McCrory, the Republican presiding over the dismantling of the state’s relatively reasoned approach to race and the law, declared Friday that he was eager to sign the state’srestrictive new voting law, the most suppressive of its era, even though he had not read a key part of it. “I don’t know enough, I’m sorry,” the governor told a reporter who asked about a provision in the pending measure that will preclude pre-registration for those under 18 (because, after all, if there is anything this nation needs to do when it comes to encouraging civic participation it is to make it harder for eager young people to vote).

National: Rep. Sensenbrenner: DOJ is legally justified in going after Texas | The Hill

The Obama administration has every right to challenge Texas’ unilateral adoption of new voting laws, a top Republican argued Thursday. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) said the Voting Rights Act authorizes the Justice Department to seek a court order requiring states to get federal approval before implementing new election procedures, as Attorney General Eric Holder said he will do Thursday in the case of Texas. Holder’s announcement drew howls from Texas Republicans, who are accusing the DOJ of trampling states’ rights and ignoring June’s Supreme Court decision to eliminate a central part of the VRA. But Sensenbrenner, who as head of the House Judiciary Committee in 2006 championed the last VRA reauthorization, suggested those critics have misread his law. “The department’s actions are consistent with the Voting Rights Act,” Sensenbrenner said Thursday in an email.

National: Justice Ginsburg Says Push for Voter ID Laws Predictable | ABC News

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she’s not surprised that Southern states have pushed ahead with tough voter identification laws and other measures since the Supreme Court freed them from strict federal oversight of their elections. Ginsburg said in an interview with The Associated Press that Texas’ decision to implement its voter ID law hours after the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last month was powerful evidence of an ongoing need to keep states with a history of voting discrimination from making changes in the way they hold elections without getting advance approval from Washington. The Justice Department said Thursday it would try to bring Texas and other places back under the advance approval requirement through a part of the law that was not challenged.

Editorials: Obama and Eric Holder take on Texas and other states on voting | New Republic

Pro-tip: When you win a big court case giving you the go-ahead to suppress voter turnout for your political opponents, don’t gloat about it. That is surely one of the lessons in the remarkable news that the U.S. Department of Justice is challenging new voting-rights laws in Texas and elsewhere even after the Supreme Court ruling that eviscerated the part of the Voting Rights Act that the feds had relied on for decades to challenge voting restrictions. What made the ruling especially galling was the celebration that followed from Republicans in states, including Texas, who immediately vowed to proceed with voting restrictions that had been challenged under the now-undermined part of the VRA. The alacrity with which Texas, North Carolina and other states have rushed to take advantage of the ruling seriously weakened the sober conservative argument, from Chief Justice John Roberts and others, that Southern states no longer needed to be singled out for special scrutiny because they had long since left their discriminatory ways behind. And it all but invited Attorney General Eric Holder to take this new step, to announce that his department would still do everything in its power to ensure fairness at the polls.

Editorials: Holder fights back on voting rights | E.J. Dionne/The Washington Post

Attorney General Eric Holder has opened what will be an epic battle over whether our country will remain committed to equal rights at the ballot box. In a display of egregious judicial activism in late June, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Holder made clear last week he intends to fight back. The struggle will begin in Texas, but it won’t end there. “We cannot allow the slow unraveling of the progress that so many, throughout history, have sacrificed so much to achieve,” Holder told the National Urban League’s annual conference. He wasn’t exaggerating the stakes. From the moment the Supreme Court threw out Section 4 of the act, which subjected the voting laws in states and jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to Justice Department scrutiny, conservative legislators in those places gleefully signaled their intention to pass laws to make it harder to vote. In addition, Texas reimposed a redistricting map that a federal court had already ruled was discriminatory. These hasty moves were unseemly but entirely predictable, proving that Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion in the case will become a Magna Carta for voter suppression. Without having to worry about “pre-clearance” from the Justice Department, legislators can go about their business of making it more difficult for voters who would throw them out of office to reach the polls — and of drawing racially gerrymandered districts that prolong their tenure. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg understood a logic here that escaped Roberts. “A governing political coalition,” she wrote in her dissent, “has an incentive to prevent changes in the existing balance of voting power.”

North Carolina: State Passes Country’s Worst Voter Suppression Law | The Nation

I’ve been in Texas this week researching the history of the Voting Rights Act at the LBJ Library. As I’ve been studying how the landmark civil rights law transformed American democracy, I’ve also been closely following how Republicans in North Carolina—parts of which were originally covered by the VRA in 1965 —have made a mockery of the law and its prohibition on voting discrimination. Late last night, the North Carolina legislature passed the country’s worst voter suppression law after only three days of debate. Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog called it “the most sweeping anti-voter law in at least decades” The bill mandates strict voter ID to cast a ballot (no student IDs, no public employee IDs, etc), even though 318,000 registered voters lack the narrow forms of acceptable ID according to the state’s own numbers and there have been no recorded prosecutions of voter impersonation in the past decade. The bill cuts the number of early voting days by a week, even though 56 percent of North Carolinians voted early in 2012. The bill eliminates same-day voter registration during the early voting period, even though 96,000 people used it during the general election in 2012 and states that have adopted the convenient reform have the highest voter turnout in the country.

Editorials: On Voting Rights, Time To Mess With Texas | The New Yorker

The same day, last month, that the Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott declared that Texas laws that had been stopped by the Act—because courts found them to be discriminatory—would immediately go into effect. On Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder struck back. In the color-blind wish-world of Chief Justice Roberts and his four conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court, Jim Crow-era restrictions on minority voting represent a sad, historical curiosity, unrelated to modern reality. Surveying the landscape from their marble aerie, these five Justices decided in Shelby County v. Holder that requiring the pre-clearance of election-law changes in certain jurisdictions, a provision of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, was now unconstitutional. Congress had passed the Act in 1965 in response to the broad denial of the right to vote; as recently as 2006, an overwhelming majority of Congress found that it was still necessary. The Court simply disagreed: “Nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically.” The majority Justices cited a newly minted “fundamental principle of equal sovereignty” of states as trumping the need to assure the equal voting rights of minorities. This is consistent with their concern for the rights of entities rather than individuals. So how did states exercise their “equal sovereignty” in response to the Court’s decision? Texas is a clear example. In 2011, the Texas Legislature had approved a state-issued photo-I.D. requirement. A Washington, D.C., court struck the law down, determining that it “imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor and racial minorities in Texas.” With the Supreme Court decision, the law was unstruck and became the law of Texas. Similarly, after Texas redrew political boundaries in 2011, another court found that minority groups “provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than we have space, or need, to address here” and threw the maps out. Now, with the Supreme Court decision, Texas can draw any maps it wants and they are excluded from pre-clearance.

Editorials: The Justice Department’s voting rights gambit, and what it means | Washington Post

The Justice Department on Thursday announced that it is fighting back after the Supreme Court effectively invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act. In its first step, Justice signaled that it would support a lawsuit against Texas’s GOP-drawn redistricting plan and seek to get a federal judge to require the state to continue to obtain pre-clearance for any electoral changes — as it did before part of the VRA was struck down. Justice is also expect to sue to stop Texas’s new Voter ID law. The move is a significant one, for a few reasons. First, it signals that the Obama administration is not going to wait and cross its fingers hoping Congress will replace the VRA language that was struck down. The Supreme Court struck down the formula that determines which states and areas with a history of racial discrimination are required to gain pre-clearance for electoral changes — effectively rendering pre-clearance inoperable until a new formula is established. In its decision, the court noted that Congress can simply replace the formula with a new one.

Florida: Voter purge to resume after Supreme Court decision | Salon.com

A District Court in Tampa has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Florida’s voter purge, on the grounds that the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act renders the lawsuit moot. The suit, which was filed by a Hispanic civil rights group and two naturalized citizens, argued that the state needed to clear its purge of suspected non-citizens with the Department of Justice, because certain counties in Florida were covered under Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. The court also lifted a stay that prevented officials from selecting any new names of suspected non-citizens from the voter rolls.

National: Attorney General opens new front on voting rights protection | Los Angeles Times

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday the Justice Department is opening a new front in the battle for voting rights in response to a Supreme Court ruling that dealt a major setback to voter protections. In a speech to the Urban League in Philadelphia, the attorney general said the Justice Department is asking a federal court in San Antonio to require the state of Texas to obtain approval in advance before putting future voting changes in place. This requirement to obtain “pre-approval” from either the Justice Department or a federal court before making changes to voting laws is available when intentional voting discrimination is found. It is the department’s first action to protect voting rights following the Supreme Court’s decision on June 25, “but it will not be our last,” Holder said in prepared remarks.

National: Justice Department to take on states over voting rights | McClatchy

The Obama administration announced Thursday that it will legally contest a series of laws around the country as part of an aggressive campaign to fight a recent Supreme Court ruling that it says could reduce minority voting. The Justice Department filed its first challenge Thursday, asking a judge to require Texas to seek permission from the federal government before making voting changes because of the state’s history of discrimination. Several states in the South and Southwest could face similar lawsuits. “This is the department’s first action to protect voting rights following the (Supreme Court) decision, but it will not be our last,” Attorney General Eric Holder said at a National Urban League conference in Philadelphia on Thursday. “My colleagues and I are determined to use every tool at our disposal to stand against discrimination wherever it is found.” Civil rights groups and African-American lawmakers welcomed the decision, as did the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP.

National: Justice Department to challenge states’ voting rights laws | The Washington Post

The Justice Department is preparing to take fresh legal action in a string of voting rights cases across the nation, U.S. officials said, part of a new attempt to blunt the impact of a Supreme Court ruling that the Obama administration has warned will imperil minority representation. The decision to challenge state officials marks an aggressive effort to continue policing voting rights issues and follows a ruling by the court last month that invalidated a critical part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Justices threw out a part of the act that required certain states with a history of discrimination to be granted Justice Department or court approval before making voting law changes. In the coming weeks, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected to announce that the Justice Department is using other sections of the Voting Rights Act to bring lawsuits or take other legal action to prevent states from implementing certain laws, including requirements to present certain kinds of identification in order to vote. The department is also expected to try to force certain states to get approval, or “pre-clearance,” before they can change their election laws.

National: Voting rights challenge in Texas opens up new Obama-GOP fight | The Hill

Attorney General Eric Holder’s surprise decision to challenge Texas’s voting laws triggers a huge new fight between the federal government and Southern states dominated by the Republican Party. Legal experts said the decision to seek a court order requiring Texas to obtain federal clearance before changing its voting laws lays the groundwork for an aggressive push to restore as much federal oversight as possible over state voting laws. “I think they’re going to try this wherever they think they have a shot,” Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in election law, said of the Justice Department. Holder’s move is in response to the Supreme Court’s decision last month to toss out a central part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that determined which states required preclearance from the federal government before changing their voting laws.

North Carolina: Elections bill headed to McCrory | Charlotte Observer

The legislature on Thursday passed a package of strict voting measures that may invite a federal lawsuit. The bill’s supporters said the measure will restore the integrity of elections and can withstand any challenge under federal law or the state constitution. But critics say the legislation is ripe for a legal challenge. The Senate gave the bill final approval with a 33-14 vote. The House followed, sending the bill to Gov. Pat McCrory for his signature with a 73-41 vote. As the House tally was read, Democrats stood, held hands and bowed their heads. The bill was much more expansive than the relatively straight-forward voter ID legislation the House approved in April that allowed students at state universities to use their school identification cards. The Senate changed the House ID provisions and added many more rules that Democrats said would discourage minority, student and elderly voters. “This is about a fear to lose power,” said Rep. Yvonne Lewis Holley, a Raleigh Democrat. “The Senate is afraid.”

North Carolina: State First to Toughen Voting Laws After Ruling | Bloomberg

North Carolina is poised to become the first state to pass a more restrictive voting law after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a core provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, had been predicting this result. “This was an enormous decision with very serious consequences,” she said. North Carolina — because of past evidence of discrimination against African Americans — was among the states previously required by Section 5 of the federal law to get U.S. approval before voting changes took effect statewide. The push by state lawmakers to tighten rules for voter identification and voting times could make it the first among several states examining voting laws following the court’s June ruling. “I don’t know what’s in hearts and minds, but one of the things that was very nice about Section 5 was that it didn’t require a showing of what was in hearts and minds,” Perez said, referring to the act’s empirical requirements for proving discrimination. “The right to vote is at stake,” she said. “Persons’ ability to have a say in our ability in the country to have free and fair elections is at stake.”

North Carolina: Opponents plan legal challenge to voting changes | WRAL.com

As the Senate takes up a raft of changes to North Carolina election laws on Wednesday, opponents said attorneys are already reviewing the proposal for a planned legal challenge. House Bill 589 initially called for voters to present photo identification at the polls, but Senate Republicans rolled out an amended bill Tuesday that included measures affecting voter registration, early voting and campaign finance. Rep. Mickey Michaux, D-Durham, said the legislation runs afoul of the Voting Rights Act. Although the U.S. Supreme Court recently invalidated part of the federal law, saying it was outdated, other sections prohibiting voter discrimination remain intact. “Voting is being emasculated in this state,” Michaux said during a news conference by the Legislative Black Caucus.

Texas: White House denies Rick Perry’s “end-run” allegation on Voting Rights | Dallas Morning News

The White House pushed back this afternoon against allegations from Texas Republicans that the Justice Department is overreaching its authority by trying to reimpose preemptive U.S. oversight of Texas elections. Not so, Obama spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters traveling with the president aboard Air Force One to Florida. Earnest noted that Texas political maps for years “have attracted quite a bit of controversy… I don’t think it’s a surprise to anybody that’s been following this that that’s attracted the attention of the Department of Justice.” Attorney General Eric Holder’s announced this morning that he would seek a court order forcing Texas to submit any and all election changes for federal review. The Supreme Court lifted that burden last month when it struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act.

Texas: Justice Department to Seek Curbs on Texas Voting-Law Changes | Businessweek

The U.S. Justice Department, deprived by the Supreme Court of the power to pre-emptively halt state voting laws it finds discriminatory, will seek a federal court ruling to force Texas to get approval before changing any voting laws. “We believe the state of Texas should be required to go through a preclearance process whenever it changes its voting laws and practices,” Attorney General Eric Holder Holder said in prepared remarks for the National Urban League Annual Conference in Philadelphia. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a cornerstone of the Voting Rights Act when it ruled invalid a rule that certain states, including Texas, must get Justice Department approval before changing their election rules.

National: Eric Holder Takes the Fight for Voting Rights to Texas | TIME.com

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder strode onto the stage before the National Urban League on Thursday and announced his intention to take the fight for voting rights — both literally and figuratively — to Texas. The subsequent Republican sputterings and wistful Democratic musings fed the faithful in both parties. Republican leaders, firmly ensconced in power, scolded an intrusive federal government to the delight of the party’s conservative base, while Democrats saw Holder as a defender of the emerging Hispanic vote that would carry the party back to the promised land. But the announcement also gave sustenance to an army of lawyers engaged in what has become a never-ending legal battle over election laws and political map-making. Holder’s announcement was prompted by last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision, which effectively removed a vital provision of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). The provision had required 16 jurisdictions, including several former Confederate states like Texas, to seek pre-clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) before making changes to election laws and redistricting maps. The attorney general called the court’s reasoning in the Shelby County v. Holder case “flawed”, and with little chance that a divided Congress would address the issue, the administration pledged to seek other remedies. Holder announced he would revive legal battles made moot by the high court decision by turning to other provisions in the VRA that allow plaintiffs to present specific evidence of minority disenfranchisement to the courts as a step to pre-clearance.

North Carolina: Republicans slammed over ‘suppressive’ voting bill | guardian.co.uk

North Carolina is set to introduce what experts say is the most “repressive” attack on the rights of African American voters in decades, barely a month after the US supreme court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act. The bill, which was passed by the state’s Republican-dominated legislature this week, puts North Carolina on collision course with Eric Holder, the attorney general, who has announced plans to protect voter rights in Texas. Civil rights advocates and experts in election law are stunned by the scope of the new law. What began in April as a 14-page bill mainly focused on introducing more stringent ID rules, ostensibly to guard against voter fraud, snowballed over the last week as it passed through the North Carolina senate. By the time it was passed by both houses late on Thursday night, the bill had become a 57-page document containing a raft of measures opposed by voting rights organisations. If the bill is passed by the state’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, voters will be required to present government-issued photo IDs at the polls, and early voting will be shortened from 17 days to 10. Voting rights experts say studies reveal that both measures would disproportionately affect elderly and minority voters, and those likely to vote Democrat.