Tag Archives: Voting Rights Act

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued last week that the court may need to reject the key element of the Voting Rights Act because political pressures would prevent Congress itself from doing so. “I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any senator to vote against continuation of this act,” Scalia said during a Supreme Court hearing. “And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. That’s the concern that those of us who have some questions about this statute have. It’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress.” Whatever Scalia’s talents as a jurist, those skills do not include vote-counting in the United States Senate. The Huffington Post asked a sampling of Senate Republicans and found that, contrary to Scalia’s presumption, some of his legislative branch colleagues across the street are just as ready as he is to toss out the heart of the Voting Rights Act, its Section 5, which prevents states with a history of racial discrimination from altering their voting laws without federal approval. It is, to be fair, a horribly difficult question for a Southern senator. Agreeing that Section 5 needs to remain in place, as the overwhelming majority of them did when the law was reauthorized in 2006, is an implicit admission that the state apparatus is still tilted against African Americans. But rejecting Section 5 is an insult to that same community, suggesting, in the face of everyday evidence, that the legacy of slavery and discrimination is ancient history.

National: Constitution Check: Is the right to vote an “entitlement”? | Yahoo! News

Lyle Denniston looks at a provocative comment from Associate Justice Antonin Scalia about racial entitlements, and what it means in the broader scope of constitutional and congressional history. The statements at issue:

There is “a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. … Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. … I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any senator to vote against continuation of this act.” – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, comment from the bench on February 27, discussing the history of Congress’ repeated renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Entitlement: the feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something (such as special privileges).” – Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary, in the second-listed definition of “entitlement.”

“We are talking about the enforcement power that the Constitution gives to Congress to make these judgments to ensure protection of fundamental rights. This is a situation in which Congress is given a power which is expressly given to it to act upon the states in their sovereign capacity.” – U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., responding to Justice Scalia at that hearing before the court last week.

“All men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” – The opening line of the Declaration of Independence.

Editorials: Barbour is right: Apply Voting Rights Act to all | The Sun Herald

Here we go again. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is on stage once more. This time a case emanating from Shelby County, Alabama, serves as the vehicle for challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the act. This section requires any change in any aspect of voting procedures of a jurisdiction must be approved by the United States Justice Department before such a change can go into effect. The catch is that Section 5 applies only to certain states or parts of states with significant minority population and a history of racial discrimination. These include most states of the “old Confederate south” and certain counties in a few other states such as California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota. With each passing year the resentment of many in those states known as the Voting Rights Act States seems to increase. Being singled out and ridiculed for conditions they believe have sufficiently changed is wearing thin with many in the affected states. Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said as much recently when he was quoted in USA Today as stating that in “over 50 years, we’ve gotten that behind us.” Barbour went on to make a case for equal treatment of all states when he said, “The same rules ought to apply to Massachusetts, Minnesota and Montana that apply to Mississippi.”

Editorials: Voting Rights Act still needed; court should let it stand | Evansville Courier & Press

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 ways of suppressing minority voting participation. Voter surveys showed Republicans trailing badly among blacks and Hispanics. Certain Republican-run jurisdictions tried a number of tactics to hold down minority voting: restrictions on early voting, bans on same-day voter registration, or understaffed or inconveniently located polling places that led to frustratingly long lines. Shelby County was seeking to get out from under the 1965 law’s requirement that nine states and parts of seven others with egregious histories of denying or hindering the minority right to vote get pre-approval from the federal government before changing their voting laws.

Editorials: How a Supreme Court Defeat Could Save Voting Rights | Kiran Moodley/The Atlantic

George W. Bush said the first decision the president of the free world makes is which carpet to get in the Oval Office. When Barack Obama moved into Bush’s vacated space, the carpet he chose had five quotes running around its border. They came from Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. The latter’s chosen phrase was: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Although wrongly attributed to King (the quote was actually the work of Boston preacher Theodore Parker), the message was clear. The U.S. had been through a long struggle — from Civil War to Civil Rights, through Reconstruction and Segregation — and America had ended up with an African American in the Oval Office. What is appealing about the story of the Civil Rights movement is its simplicity: its arc, while long, bends into a neat narrative. It can be plotted through major events that are etched into our consciousness: Brown v. Board, 1954; the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955; Little Rock, 1957; the Sit-Ins, 1960; the Freedom Rides, 1961; Birmingham and the March on Washington, 1963; the Civil Rights Act, 1964; and finally, Selma and the Voting Rights Act, 1965. Remember those events, remember those dates, and you’re sure to pass your exam. Yet if, as widely predicted (by veteran reporter Lyle Denniston and Atlantic correspondent Andrew Cohen), the present Supreme Court strikes down section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, what does that mean for the civil rights narrative? Does 1965 lose its significance? Does the arc bend away from justice?

Arizona: Bill Targets Early Ballots Key to Latino Turnout | Bloomberg

Arizona lawmakers may make it a felony for community groups or political committees to gather and submit mail ballots before elections, a strategy used by Latino activists and others to boost voter participation. The measure moving through the Republican-controlled Legislature is among several bills that backers say will help prevent fraud and reduce the burden on election officials. Opponents say they are intended to curb Latino voting, which tends to be Democratic, as Hispanics become a larger percentage of the population while white baby-boomers age. “These bills are targeted at groups that are turning out the Latino vote,” said Roopali Desai, a Phoenix lawyer representing Promise Arizona, which said it helped register more than 34,000 new voters and turned in thousands of ballots last year. “They are trying to take away the tools in these groups’ toolkits, like mobilizing and getting people to return their ballots — tools that we have learned are successful.”

Arizona: Minority senators raise alarm on elections-linked bills | AZCentral

A trio of racially diverse state senators on Monday condemned elections-related bills that they say discriminate against minorities and called on the U.S. Department of Justice to monitor the legislation. Of particular concern to the senators are Senate Bill 1003, which would limit who can return a voter’s ballot, and SB 1261, which would drop people from the early voting list if they failed to mail in their ballots and instead voted at the polls. Both passed the Senate last week. “It would truly throw up obstacles to the early-vote process,” Senate Minority Leader Leah Landrum Taylor said of SB 1261. She is African-American. She was joined by Sens. Jack Jackson Jr., a Navajo, and Steve Gallardo, who is Latino. All three are Democrats, and all three said the bills would have a “devastating” impact on minority voting.

National: Biden critical of challenges to Voting Rights Act | USAToday

Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd gathered for the annual commemoration of Bloody Sunday in 1965 that Americans “can’t let their guard down” against attempts to restrict access to voting. Speaking before the Martin and Coretta King Unity Brunch on Sunday morning, Biden said states had passed 180 laws restricting voting, “some more pernicious than others.” “Here we are, 48 years after all you did, and we’re still fighting?” Biden asked a capacity crowd at Wallace State Community College in Selma. “In 2011, 12 and 13? We’re able to beat back most of those attempts in election of 2012, but that doesn’t mean it’s over.” Biden, who brought his daughter and sister with him, joined several speakers at the rally who were critical of voter ID attempts and a lawsuit brought by Shelby County, Ala., to overturn Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law whose passage was inspired by the events in Selma. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case last week. The vice president joked that he got the “credit or blame” when he was a senator for convincing Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., the presidential candidate of the States’ Rights Democrats in 1948, to vote to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.

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 not a ‘racial entitlement’ | Leonard Pitts Jr./The Herald-Sun

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.

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.

Editorials: Challenge to Voting Rights Act ignores reality | Donna Brazile/CNN.com

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama was at the Capitol, joining leaders of Congress to dedicate a statue in honor of the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” Alabama’s Rosa Parks. About the same time, across the street at the Supreme Court, an Alabama lawyer was arguing that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act — the consequence and legacy of the Civil Rights Movement — was unnecessary and unconstitutional. The irony lies not only in the timing or juxtaposition, but the institutions. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat when a white bus driver ordered her to move. Twelve years earlier, the same driver had grabbed her coat sleeve and pushed her off his bus for trying to enter through the front rather than the back door. This time he said, “Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.” She replied, “You may do that.” Her arrest led to a 381-day boycott of Montgomery buses by the black community. The boycott propelled the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to prominence as a civil rights leader. And the arrest of Parks and the boycott she inspired led to a civil law suit, Browder v. Gayle, in which the Supreme Court declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses unconstitutional. It took Congress 10 years to catch up to the Supreme Court, when it passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

New Hampshire: State to get a voter bailout from feds | NEWS06

New Hampshire deserves a “bailout” from federal oversight under the Voting Rights Act, a three-judge panel in Washington D.C. has ruled. “Finally, we’re done with this,” Secretary of State William Gardner said Saturday night. The court approved the bailout on March 1, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of that very section of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 of the VRA requires jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get all changes to their election laws “pre-cleared” by the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court in D.C. New Hampshire found itself under that requirement in the 1960s, in part because the state had a literacy test on the books back then. Ten communities were singled out because of supposedly low voter registration and turnout.

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.

National: In Voting Rights Arguments, Chief Justice Misconstrued Census Data | NPR

At the voting rights argument in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts tore into Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, grilling him on his knowledge of voting statistics. The point the chief justice was trying to make was that Massachusetts, which is not covered by the preclearance section of the Voting Rights Act, has a far worse record in black voter registration and turnout than Mississippi, which is covered by Section 5 of the act. But a close look at census statistics indicates the chief justice was wrong, or at least that he did not look at the totality of the numbers.

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.

Editorials: How to make the Voting Rights Act work better for everyone | Bangor Daily News

Forty-eight years ago, exasperated with the persistent abuse of black voters, Congress put most of the American South in a timeout. Now the Supreme Court appears poised to end those sanctions. It shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean the selective scrutiny applied to Southern states is necessarily fair. As the justices consider the case of Shelby County v. Holder, which was argued before the court Wednesday, they should keep in mind one goal above all others: protecting the right to vote, regardless of region or other circumstances. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 bans discriminatory voting procedures nationwide, codifying the 15th Amendment’s guarantee of the right to vote regardless “of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The law has stricter requirements, however, for jurisdictions with a long history of disenfranchisement.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act: Conservatives trying to have it both ways | NewsObserver.com

It’s been a week of big events in the voting rights world, and I’ve been privileged enough to witness much of it first-hand. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Even Justice Samuel Alito has acknowledged that this law is “one of the most successful statutes that Congress passed in the 20th century and one could probably go farther than that.” And earlier in the week, a three-judge panel of North Carolina state judges heard oral arguments in the case challenging the constitutionality of the state legislative and congressional redistricting plans enacted by the General Assembly in 2011. Listening to discussion of the Voting Rights Act in both cases, I was struck by contrasts between the arguments advanced by lawyers for Republicans in the North Carolina case and what the conservative justices were concerned with the Shelby case.

National: The Supreme Court could strike down part of the Voting Rights Act – Here’s what that would mean | Washington Post

In heated oral arguments Wednesday, the Supreme Court justices gave the impression that they’re ready to get rid of a key section of the Voting Rights Act. At issue is section 5, which requires the Department of Justice to issue a “preclearance” of any changes to districting or other voting laws in a number of set jurisdictions, covering most of the South but also Manhattan, Brooklyn, some counties in California and South Dakota, and towns in Michigan and New Hampshire. Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the laws had the effect of requiring racially motivated gerrymandering, amounting to the “perpetuation of a racial entitlement” on the part of black legislators and constituents benefiting from the districting. Chief Justice John Roberts agreed, asking Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, “Is it the government’s submission that the citizens of the South are more racist than the citizens of the North?”

National: Court decision on Voting Rights Act could spur election changes, but not turn back the clock | NBC

If Wednesday’s argument before the Supreme Court is any indication, a majority of the justices seemed inclined to strike down or curtail key sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Even if the court does move in that direction, election officials in some states will have more leeway to change some procedures, but voters in 2014 won’t suddenly wake up in 1964. Hearing a challenge brought by Shelby County, Ala., several justices voiced skepticism about the formula the law uses to decide which states and other jurisdictions are required to get permission, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington for any change in voting procedures that they seek to make. In 2006 Congress reauthorized Section 5 of the law for another 25 years. The current formula uses election data from 1972 and earlier to determine which places section 5 applies to. Critics of the law say the formula is archaic and ought to be scrapped.

Editorials: The threat from within — the ironic challenge to the Voting Rights Act | Rep. Terri A. Sewell/al.com

After almost 50 years of expanding and protecting voting rights, a new threat comes from an unlikely place – the U.S. Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the justices heard oral arguments in Shelby County, AL v. Holder, a case that will decide the survival of preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that require federal oversight of voting practices in 16 covered states including Alabama. The Voting Rights Act, which was passed as result of the Selma to Montgomery march, provides legal protections for individuals, primarily minorities, in states with histories of discriminatory voting practices. Since its passage in 1965, the act has been critical in ensuring that millions of our nation’s minority citizens are guaranteed the right to vote. I feel compelled to write this essay because I am deeply concerned about the erosion of voting rights that sadly still exist in our state and in this nation. Perhaps the biggest irony is that the current threat to this legislation comes from the very state (Alabama) that was the impetus for its passage almost 50 years ago.

Voting Blogs: Not Yet Section 5’s Time To Die | Andrew Cohen/Brennan Center for Justice

The need for the Voting Rights Act will die, and it should die, on the day when Americans can say to one another with a straight face that racial discrimination in voting no longer exists there. Sadly, that day has not come. Before the United States Supreme Court’s oral argument this week in Shelby County v. Holder,Professor Garrett Epps cut to the core of the conflict over Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. “On the one hand,” he wrote Sunday in The Atlantic, “there is the right to vote… the cornerstone of a democratic system.” On the other hand, he added, there is the “sovereign dignity” of the states, words and a principle that “are mentioned nowhere in the Constitution.” As we begin to contemplate a world without this vital provision of this venerable law, a world in which federal officials are deprived of one of the most successful tools they have ever had to root out racial discrimination in voting practices, it is worth noting today the relative values of these conflicting interests as they impact the everyday lives of the American people. There is simply no comparison– despite the tone and tenor of some of the questions posed Wednesday by some of the justices.

Voting Blogs: Why the Predictions Could be Wrong in Shelby County | Myrna Pérez/Brennan Center for Justice

If you listen to the court watchers reacting to Wednesday’s oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, you might be bracing yourself for a roll back of voting rights. They are largely predicting the formula used to determine which states and localities are subject to or “covered” by the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) will be struck down by the Supreme Court. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard these prognostications. In 2009, similar predictions abounded in a similar case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder (NAMUDNO), involving this key provision, called Section 5, of the VRA. They were wrong in NAMUDNO, and while only time will tell, I think they will be wrong in Shelby County.

Massachusetts: Secretary of State Galvin challenges Chief Justice Roberts’ claim about voting | Boston.com

Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. certainly sounded authoritative when he made a striking, though unflattering, declaration about Massachusetts as the high court heard arguments over the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is designed to assure equal access across races to polling booths. “Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African-American voter turnout?” Roberts asked Donald Verrilli Jr., solicitor general for the Department of Justice, during Wednesday’s arguments. “I do not know that,” Verrilli answered. “Massachusetts,” Roberts responded, adding that even Mississippi has a narrower gap. Roberts later asked if Verrilli knew which state has the greatest disparity in registration. Again, Roberts said it was Massachusetts. The problem is, Roberts is woefully wrong on those points, according to Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who on Thursday branded Roberts’s assertion a slur and made a declaration of his own. “I’m calling him out,” Galvin said.

Mississippi: A Divide on Voting Rights Where Blood Spilled | NYTimes.com