Editorials: America needs the Voting Rights Act | Howard Simon/MiamiHerald.com

The U. S. Supreme Court seems poised to declare Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. The challenge, filed by Shelby County, Alabama, was invited by signals sent by the Supreme Court in earlier cases. It will be surprising if the decision departs from the Court’s ideological and partisan 5–4 divide. Section 5 requires that 9 states and parts of 7 others — all with a history of discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities — get approval from the Department of Justice or the federal court in Washington before making changes to voting laws or procedures. This “pre-clearance” is designed to ensure that changes do not have a retrogressive impact on the voting rights of minorities. …  The tactics of voter suppression have changed since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act. It is less common that people of color face violence or are murdered when they try to exercise their fundamental rights as a citizen. Instead, bureaucrats purge voter rolls and legislators restrict voter registration activities. … The tactics of voter suppression have changed, but voter suppression has not ended.

Virginia: Governor signs strict voter ID law | MSNBC

Only a day after Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe’s veto of a strict voter ID law, Virginia’s Republican Governor Bob McDonnell signed into law Tuesday the second major change to voting requirements in just over a year. The bill shrinks the list of acceptable forms of identification a voter can use to cast a ballot starting in 2014. The law eliminates the use of a utility bill, pay stub, bank statement, government check or Social Security card as acceptable identification, leaving only drivers licenses, voter ID cards, student IDs, and concealed handgun permits. Republicans insist the measure will help prevent voter fraud and improve the integrity of election, although according to an exhaustive study from News 21, there has been only one case of voter fraud in Virginia that would have been prevented by an ID requirement since 2000.

Arizona: Redistricting challenge heads to US court today | Arizona Daily Star

Republican interests head to federal court today hoping to realign the state’s legislative districts more to their liking. Challengers are pinning their hopes on the fact that 30 districts crafted by the Independent Redistricting Commission are not all equal in population. Attorney David Cantelme contends the differences were done “deliberately, intentionally and in violation of the one-person/one-vote principle.” The goal of the commission, he charges, was to cluster as many Republicans as possible together in districts, leaving the other, underpopulated districts with more Democrats than otherwise would occur, giving Democrats an unfair and illegal advantage in electing their own candidates to the Legislature. Attorneys for the commission do not dispute the population disparities.

Editorials: The Voting Rights Act should be left alone | Gregory B. Craig/The Washington Post

On Aug. 6, 1965, I was working in Coahoma County, Miss., trying to register new voters at the courthouse in Clarksdale. For many weeks, I and other civil rights workers in our project had been knocking on doors, persuading African Americans to go down to the courthouse, stand in line, risk retaliation, take a detailed written test and, inevitably, be rejected as unqualified. We would then ask each rejected applicant to sign an affidavit. We collected those affidavits and sent them in bundles to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. The purpose of this effort was to show that African Americans in the South wanted to vote and that this particular person had been prevented from registering for no reason other than his or her race. That summer, we persuaded 500 African American citizens in Coahoma County to try to register to vote. Four or five passed the test. The rest signed affidavits. We prayed that federal officials would read the affidavits and do something about the situation. …  Many months later, I asked one of my Harvard professors — a distinguished legal historian who was also the biographer of Oliver Wendell Holmes — whether there was any concern about the constitutionality of Congress passing a law that imposed requirements on some states when it did not impose the same requirements on other states. He said: “No. We fought a very bloody war about that same question: the proper role of the federal government when it came to protecting the rights of an American citizen. The South lost that war; and in 1870 the country, to make itself absolutely clear on that issue, adopted the 15th Amendment. That amendment put the issue to rest.”

National: Justices wrestle with Arizona voter registration law | POLITICO.com

The Supreme Court took up its second voting rights case in less than a month on Monday, with the justices appearing narrowly divided on whether the National Voter Registration Act, or “Motor Voter” bill, trumps state registration requirements. At issue in the case is Arizona’s Proposition 200, which requires proof of citizenship, and whether or not the federal registration form under the NVRA preempts Arizona’s more stringent requirements. The liberal justices criticized Arizona’s eligibility requirements as overly restrictive and in direct conflict with the federal voter registration form, which requires people to attest to their citizenship via signature but does not require documentation of citizenship. Some of the Court’s conservative judges, however, parsed the wording of the NVRA and suggested the states do, in fact, have the ability to add requirements such as proof of citizenship.

National: Can States Go Beyond Federal Law On Voter Registration? | NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in a case that could upend the federal effort to spur and streamline voter registration. At issue is an Arizona law that requires prospective voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote. A federal appeals court ruled last year that the state law must fall because it conflicts with federal law. The 1993 National Voter Registration Act, known as the NVRA, allows voters to register by mail using a federal form on a postcard. The form asks, among other things: Are you a citizen of the United States? Prospective voters must check yes or no and sign the form under penalty of perjury. The federal law also requires state officials to “accept and use” the federal registration form for federal elections. The question in this case is whether the state of Arizona may place further conditions on registration, beyond what is required by federal law.

National: Justice Department’s inspector general report: Is the Voting Rights section too politically biased and polarized to enforce the Voting Rights Act? | Slate Magazine

A long-awaited report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General issued last week sheds considerable light on the battles within the department’s voting section during the Bush and Obama administrations. The picture is not pretty. It is a tale of dysfunction and party polarization that could unfairly derail the nomination of the next secretary of labor and could even provide ammunition to Justice Antonin Scalia’s incendiary charge, made during the Supreme Court’s hearing on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act last month, that the civil rights law is a kind of “racial entitlement.” The sordid business raises serious questions about whether the whole model for the federal enforcement of voting rights should be reworked. The record of political bias in the Justice Department’s voting section during President George W. Bush’s administration is well-known. (The department’s voting section is charged with enforcing the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting laws.) We know from earlier reports that election officials, including Monica Goodling, went on a hiring binge to hire conservative attorneys to work in the section and, in the words of Bush appointee Bradley Schlozman, to “gerrymander all those crazy libs right out of the section.”

National: Young Hispanics Stymied at Ballot Box | HispanicBusiness.com

Hispanics and African-Americans under age 30 were disproportionately hampered in their efforts to vote in the November election even in states without voter ID laws, a new study indicates. The study, “Black and Latino Youth Disproportionately Affected by Voter Identification Laws in the 2012 Election,” shows that voter ID laws are applied differently across racial and ethnic groups, said professor Cathy Cohen of the University of Chicago and assistant professor Jon C. Rogowski at Washington University. Among Hispanic youths, 8.1 percent couldn’t vote because they didn’t have the necessary identification. The numbers for blacks were even higher at 17.3 percent, but just 4.7 percent for whites. “Our study shows that without a doubt youth of color are discriminated against at the voting booth,” Rogowski said in a statement. “It doesn’t matter whether it results from conscious or unconscious bias, the result is that people of color are being disenfranchised and our nation has an obligation to put an end to it.”

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.

Editorials: Bring Voting Rights Law Into the 21st Century | Kat Kane/Huffington Post

If skepticism from the Supreme Court’s conservative wing is any indication, a core provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 could be struck down this year. This should alarm anyone who views voting as a fundamental right and not, as Justice Scalia characterized it (to audible gasps), a “racial entitlement.” Section 5, the statute at the heart of Shelby County vs. Holder, requires areas with a history of voter discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing any election laws. The measure is considered one of the most successful anti-discrimination laws on the books and today remains key to combating voter suppression. Yet during oral arguments last week, the high court’s conservatives suggested that this critical voter protection tool has served it’s purpose and now unjustly infringes upon the rights of states and municipalities; that, essentially, the law worked too well to continue. To this point, Chief Justice Roberts rhetorically asked whether “citizens of the South are more racist than citizens of the North.” Clearly, no region has a monopoly on discrimination. But the question the court should be asking is ‘are minority voters still vulnerable to systemic disenfranchisement?’

Editorials: A Universal Right to Vote | NYTimes.com

Last month’s Supreme Court arguments over the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act served as a reminder of the long history of racial voting suppression in this country. Many of the states covered by Section 5 of the act, particularly in the South, spent decades trying every method they could think of to keep blacks and other minorities from the polls, or to reduce their voting strength. But areas that aren’t covered by the act have no reason to feel smug. Many lawmakers in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have also pursued ways to keep selected voters from the polls, using methods like ID requirements or restrictions on early voting. Though the intent is often partisan — Republican officials repressing Democratic votes — the effect is usually the same as it was during the struggles of the 1960s, having a disparate impact on blacks and other minorities, but now adding on students, the poor and the elderly.

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.

National: How voter ID kept minority youths from the polls in 2012 | MSNBC

Voter ID laws had a disproportionate impact on minority youth voters last November, even in states without the restrictive laws.
“The very existence of identification laws makes young people of color more likely than white youth to be asked to prove their identity,” said Dr. Cathy Cohen, a researcher at the University of Chicago. Her findings showed that young minority voters (under 30-years-old) were more likely to be asked for identification, even in states without ID requirements. Nearly two-thirds of black youth report they were asked for ID in states without voter ID laws, and a little more than half of young Latino voters reported being asked. Meanwhile only 42.8% of white youth said that they were asked for ID. In voter ID states, the application of the law was more even, but white youth voters were asked for identification less often than African American youths (84.3% of the time for whites compared to 94.3% for African- Americans).

Editorials: The Scalia Court and Voting Rights Act | Doug Kendall/Huffington Post

With Justice Antonin Scalia’s controversial statement that the Voting Rights Act represents the “perpetuation of racial entitlement” continuing to reverberate across the media landscape, it’s hard to believe that the Supreme Court is poised to hear another seminal challenge to a federal law protecting Americans’ right to vote. But next Monday, the Court will hear Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, a challenge by the state of Arizona to the protections of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The NVRA, also known as the Motor Voter Act, was enacted in 1993 with the goal of boosting voter participation and streamlining voter registration. At stake in both the challenge to the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, and the challenge to the NVRA in the Arizona case, is whether the federal government will continue to have the power to beat back efforts by the states to suppress the vote. As anyone who was watching the 2012 elections knows, one of the key voter suppression methods employed by conservatives was the enactment of ever more burdensome voter ID laws. Those laws were an issue in Shelby County because the Voting Rights Act was used in 2012 to block or delay the implementation of voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina.

Alaska: Rhetoric ratchets up in Voting Rights Act political debate | Alaska Dispatch

Remarks by U.S. Sen. Mark Begich in defense of the Voting Rights Act and its special protections for Alaska Natives have come under fire from some in state government, but the first-term Democrat is standing behind them and even gaining some other defenders. Speaking in Juneau earlier this week, Begich criticized a bill in the Alaska Legislature that would require photo identification for voters, as well as the Parnell administration’s court attempts to overturn the civil rights legislation, which gives special protections to Natives and special authority over state elections to the U.S. Department of Justice. Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, said Begich misrepresented what his House Bill 3 would do.  “Contrary to his assertion before our Legislature, nothing in HB 3 erects any barriers to any voter,” Lynn said. That’s because requiring photo identification is not a barrier, he said. Begich maintained it is, citing some of his own staff members with elderly relatives lacking photo IDs who had for years voted and participated in their villages. They’d be barred from voting without the photo IDs, he said.

Arizona: The Voting Rights Case You Haven’t Heard Of | Constitutional Accountability Center

More than a week after oral argument in Shelby County v. Holder, the scorn expressed by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia and others towards the Voting Rights Act continues to dominate the news.  Whether it be Justice Scalia’s statement that the Voting Rights Act survives only because of the self-perpetuating power of “racial entitlements” or Chief Justice Roberts’ dubious claim that the state of voting discrimination may be worse in Massachusetts than Mississippi, there has been an outpouring of coverage highlighting just how the weak the arguments against the Voting Rights Act are.  As Linda Greenhouse put it, it would be “an error of historic proportions” – akin to Plessy and other travesties in Supreme Court history – to strike down the Voting Rights Act when the Constitution expressly gives to Congress the power to eradicate racial discrimination in voting.  With the focus on whether the Court will strike down our nation’s most iconic civil rights law, there has been virtually no attention to the fact that, when the Justices convene again on March 18th, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a second major voting rights case, Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council.  But Inter Tribal Council is a very important case that will have huge implications for Congress’ power to protect the right to vote and to enact new, needed reforms in federal elections.

Montana: Inequality for Indian voters alleged | Great Falls Tribune

Later this month, parties will begin filing briefs in a federal lawsuit where the outcome could have major implications for Indian voters in Montana and the West. On Feb. 20, an appellate court ruled that a lawsuit brought by a group of Indian plaintiffs naming Secretary of State Linda McCulloch and county elections officials in Blaine, Rosebud, and Big Horn Counties as defendants, could go forward. The court denied McCulloch’s request to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction, and now the opening briefs in the case are due March 19. At the heart of the lawsuit is whether McCulloch and county elections officials violated portions of the federal Voting Rights Act that “prohibit voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups.” The plaintiffs argue their rights to equal access to voting were violated when McCulloch and county elections officials refused to set up satellite voting offices on remote Indian reservations in advance of the November 2012 presidential election.

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.

Editorials: Voting rights: Americans died for it, the free world admires it, the Supreme Court should preserve it | Brent Budowsky/The Hill

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently made an important and wise comment when he said that with gridlock plaguing our political system, “A democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say.” Considering the controversial history of recent Supreme Court decisions regarding elections, and the pending case regarding the Voting Rights Act, the nine unelected justices should uphold the Voting Rights Act, which was not passed under gridlock but was passed by overwhelming majorities of both parties, in both the House and Senate, including those representing states covered by the act. In my view the act should be upheld, period. For conservative justices who might be inclined to overturn the act or Section 5 of the act, I would suggest they consider that this would violate the conservative principle against extreme judicial activism. It would violate the conservative principle of avoiding political decisions. It would violate the conservative principle against the unelected judicial branch negating overwhelming agreement of the elected executive and legislative branches, which have substantially more expertise regarding free elections than those of “narrow legal background.”

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: Supreme Court: Uphold the Voting Rights Act! | Ari Berman/The Nation

On Sunday, March 3, Representative John Lewis locked arms with Luci Baines Johnson and Vice President Joe Biden and marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge here. Forty-eight years earlier, on “Bloody Sunday,” Lewis was badly beaten by Alabama state troopers at the foot of the bridge while attempting to march from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights. Eight days later, Luci’s father introduced the Voting Rights Act before a joint session of Congress. “When Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965,” Lewis said, “he helped free and liberate all of us.”  At the time of Bloody Sunday, only 393 of the 15,000 black voting-age residents of Selma’s Dallas County were registered to vote. Today Selma has a black mayor, a black congresswoman and six black city council members. Since 2000, Lewis has led a congressional pilgrimage to Selma for every anniversary of Bloody Sunday, paying homage to how the VRA transformed American democracy. This year’s march had special significance.

Editorials: Scalia scorns vote protections | Verna Williams /Cincinnati.com

On my constitutional law exam this year, I invited students to comment on a quote from a scholar – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. What he said is worth considering in light of his gasp-inducing comment during the argument in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 case, Shelby County v. Holder: “Originalism seems to me more compatible with the nature and purpose of a Constitution in a democratic system. A democratic society does not, by and large, need constitutional guarantees to insure that its laws will reflect ‘current values.’ Elections take care of that quite well. The purpose of constitutional guarantees (especially those guaranteeing individual rights) is precisely to prevent the law from reflecting certain changes in original values that the society adopting the Constitution thinks fundamentally undesirable. Or, more precisely, to require the society to devote to the subject the long and hard consideration required for a constitutional amendment before those particular values can be cast aside.” This is Justice Scalia in his element. Originalism as protector of constitutional values against the vagaries of electoral politics. Requiring us to think “long and hard” before casting aside those foundational notions. And yet.

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: Voting Rights Act still needed | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

A case before the U.S. Supreme Court once again asks the justices to change the Voting Rights Act of 1965, arguably one of the nation’s most effective civil-rights laws. Since its inception, the number of blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in the political process has grown almost to the point of parity with white voters. Such progress was cited last week when attorneys representing Shelby County, Ala., asked the justices to strike down a key provision in the law because they believe it has served its purpose. Granted, a lot has changed since blacks in the South were denied the right to vote due to rigid laws and societal norms that denied them basic rights because of the color of their skin. The days of Jim Crow have passed. But the need for strong federal oversight to protect against discriminatory voting practices has not. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is still needed, as is Section 5, the key component that requires a select group of states, counties and other jurisdictions with the worst history of racial discrimination to obtain approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before implementing any change to their voting procedures.

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.

New York: Bronx Offers Case Study Over Future of Voting Act | NYTimes.com

Emerging from the bloody protests in Selma, Ala., the Voting Rights Act was initially heralded as a declaration that the federal government would no longer tolerate the open racism of the segregated South. But this narrow mandate to monitor elections in six Southern states grew quietly over the years, extending to unexpected corners of the country, including the Bronx. Jose Comacho, a Bronx grocer, sued unsuccessfully in 1958 to have the English literacy test removed as a voting requirement. The borough landed on the list of places to be monitored more than four decades ago, along with Brooklyn and Manhattan, when the statewide English-language literacy test required of voters suppressed participation in Hispanic and black neighborhoods around the city to rates low enough to prompt federal intervention. That test, then used by the local political machine to hold on to power as the minority population swelled, is long gone, but the federal oversight has remained. As the Supreme Court reviews a section of this landmark measure that requires federal approval of changes to voting procedures, with members of the court’s conservative majority suggesting last week that it could be time to end it, the Bronx offers a case study into arguments for and against continuing the half-century effort to monitor elections through a racial prism.

National: Chris Coons Plotting Legislative Response If Voting Rights Act Is Gutted | Huffington Post

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) is hoping the Supreme Court doesn’t strike down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, but he’ll be prepared if they do. Coons told Attorney General Eric Holder during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Wednesday that he’d like to work with the Justice Department “should there be a change in the status of the Voting Rights Act.” The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week on whether to strike down Section 5 of the 1965 law, which forces certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to get the federal government’s permission to make changes to their voting laws and procedures.

Editorials: ‘A Big New Power’ | Linda Greenhouse/NYTimes.com

Years from now, when the Supreme Court has come to its senses, justices then sitting will look back on the spring of 2013 in bewilderment. On what basis, they will wonder, did five conservative justices, professed believers in judicial restraint, reach out to grab the authority that the framers of the post-Civil War 14th and 15th Amendments had vested in Congress nearly a century and a half earlier “to enforce, by appropriate legislation” the right to equal protection and the right to vote. How on earth did it come to pass that the Supreme Court ruled a major provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional? You will have noticed that I’m making a premature assumption here about the outcome of a case, Shelby County v. Holder, that was argued just last week. Although I’m willing to bet that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has already drafted his 5-to-4 majority opinion, I’d be nothing but relieved if the court proves me wrong when it issues the decision sometime before the end of June. But except for a few wishful thinkers, everyone who witnessed the argument, read the transcript, or listened to the audio now expects the court to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act – and seriously harm itself in the process. As I made clear in my most recent column, I wasn’t expecting anything good to come out of this argument. But neither did I anticipate the ugliness that erupted from the bench. While Justice Antonin Scalia’s depiction of the Voting Rights Act as the “perpetuation of racial entitlement” quickly went viral (40 screens of Google hits, by the time I checked earlier this week), that was not even the half of it.