Tag Archives: Voting Rights Act

Iron-fisted enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act transformed American politics, especially in the South, by making sure minorities had a clear path to the ballot box and an equal shot at public service. Forty-eight years later, after the re-election of an African-American president, the heart of that law is on trial. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case that is sure to ignite a debate over how far the country has progressed on racial issues and whether minority voters still need extra protection. Shelby County, Ala., opposed by the Justice Department and civil rights groups, wants two key sections of the Voting Rights Act declared unconstitutional. Section 5 bars election officials in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination from changing their voting procedures unless they first prove the changes won’t hurt minorities. Section 4b uses a formula to determine which states, counties and municipalities are subject to Section 5. Shelby County says the provisions are outmoded and unfair to parts of the country that have transcended their discriminatory pasts.

National: Supreme Court to weigh divisive voting rights case | CNN.com

Shelby County is booming. The Birmingham suburb is lined with strip malls, subdivisions, and small factories, in what was once sleepy farmland. The population has grown fivefold since 1970 to about 200,000. Change in this bedroom community is afoot, at least on the surface. But the federal government thinks an underlying threat of discrimination remains throughout Alabama and other parts of the country in perhaps the most hard-fought franchise in the Constitution: The right to vote. Competing voices in this county, echoes of decades-long debates over equal access to the polls, now spill out in a 21st century fight, one that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

National: Voting Rights Act faces Supreme Court challenge | CBS News

When he signed the federal Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson did not rely on understatement to express the significance of the legislation. “Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that ever been won a on any battlefield,” Johnson told members of Congress and dignitaries assembled in the Capitol’s rotunda. Standing beneath a large painting of the British surrender to George Washington at the Revolutionary War battle of Yorktown, and flanked by a statue of Abraham Lincoln, Johnson harkened back 350 years to the arrival of the first African-Americans at colonial Jamestown, Virginia, “in darkness and chains” as slaves. “Today, we strike away the last major shackle of those fierce and ancient bonds,” Johnson said. “Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote.”

National: States Take Sides As Court Revisits Voting Rights Act | NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments next week in a case that tests the constitutionality of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the law considered the most effective civil rights statute in American history. At issue is whether a key provision of the statute has outlived its usefulness. A staggering 49 friend of the court briefs have been filed, among them briefs from 11 states urging the court to either strike down or uphold the law. What is intriguing is that some of the states now arguing against the law were not troubled by its provisions just four years ago, the last time it was before the court. In 2009, a small Texas utility district challenged the so-called preclearance section of the law, which requires nine states, most of them in the South, and parts of other states like California and New York, to get advance approval from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington before changing any voting laws or regulations. When the case got to the U.S. Supreme Court, only one state — Georgia — came out clearly against the law, claiming that the provision was unconstitutional. Alabama filed a brief echoing part but not all of Georgia’s arguments. Both emphasized that their respective states have changed dramatically since 1965, and asked the court to seriously consider the legality of the preclearance section, given its burden on covered states.

National: Voting Rights Act: A political twist for the South | USAToday

The Voting Rights Act that goes on trial at the Supreme Court on Wednesday has helped boost African Americans’ presence in Southern legislatures. But in a twist of irony, it also has contributed to their loss of political clout. Since its passage in 1965, the law’s Section 5 has forced states with a history of racial discrimination to clear changes in voting procedures with the federal government. The Justice Department, in turn, has insisted that drawing district lines is one of those procedures – one that should give blacks and other minorities ample opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. That has led to the creation of so-called majority-minority election districts dominated by blacks or Hispanics, nearly all of them Democrats. Achieving that goal, however, has required the simultaneous creation of more heavily white, Republican districts in surrounding areas.

National: Can escape clause save voting rights provision? | Washington Examiner

The Obama administration and civil rights groups are defending a key section of the landmark voting rights law at the Supreme Court by pointing reformed state, county and local governments to an escape hatch from the law’s strictest provision. The Voting Rights Act effectively attacked persistent discrimination at the polls by keeping close watch, when it comes to holding elections, on those places with a history of preventing minorities from voting. Any changes, from moving a polling place to redrawing electoral districts, can’t take effect without approval from the Justice Department or federal judges in Washington. But the Voting Rights Act allows governments that have changed their ways to get out from under this humbling need to get permission through a “bailout provision.” Nearly 250 counties and local jurisdictions have done so; thousands more could be eligible based on the absence of recent discriminatory efforts in voting. The viability of the bailout option could play an outsized role in the Supreme Court’s consideration of the voting rights law’s prior approval provision, although four years ago, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas said the prospect of bailing out had been “no more than a mirage.”

Editorials: Section 5 of Voting Rights Act must be preserved | Arizona Daily Star

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case from Shelby County, Ala., challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, our nation’s most effective tool in combating racial discrimination in voting. The importance of this case can’t be overstated. At stake is the future of our democracy. The protections in the Voting Rights Act affect millions of African-American, Latino, Asian-American and American Indian citizens, who depend on it to ensure they can participate in our elections and have a voice in our democracy. Section 5 requires those states and local jurisdictions proved to have the most egregious history of racial and ethnic voting discrimination to receive preapproval – or “preclearance” – from the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court before making any election-related change, such as passing restrictive voter ID laws, limiting hours for early voting, moving a polling place or redrawing city council districts.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act Deserves More Judicial Deference than Indiana ID | Spencer Overton/ACS

Many who assert the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder should uphold the preclearance and coverage provisions of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act disagree with the Court’s 2008 decision in Crawford v. Marion County Bd. of Elections that upheld Indiana’s photo identification requirement. On the other hand, those who oppose Section 5 cite Crawford as a reason Section 5 is allegedly unconstitutional. An honest reading of Crawford, however, provides five reasons the Court should now defer to Congress’s determinations regarding the coverage and preclearance provisions of Section 5. In Crawford, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Indiana ID requirement did not unconstitutionally burden the right to vote (the Court did not address whether ID discriminated on the basis of race). The plaintiff in Shelby County seeks to undermine Congress’s authority under the 14th and 15th Amendments by making the novel claim that the coverage provision violates a “principle of state equality” — but the U.S. Constitution contains no such requirement.

National: Voting Rights Act faces key test in Supreme Court | Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court will take up a case from Alabama next week to decide whether to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark measure that made voting a reality for blacks in the South and won extension by a near-unanimous vote from Congress in 2006. Critics on the right agree the law was a success, but they contend it is now outdated and unfair to the South. They also say it is used mostly as a way to force states to draw electoral districts that favor black or Latino candidates. But liberal legal scholars have urged the justices to step back and pay attention to the history of the Reconstruction era. They are pointedly addressing the conservatives, led by Justice Antonin Scalia, who say the court should follow the actual words and original understanding of the Constitution. The 15th Amendment, added in 1870, says the right to vote “shall not be abridged or denied … on account of race” and “Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

National: How The Voting Rights Act, Now In Danger, Came To Pass And Shaped History | TPM

On March 15, 1965, a week after Alabama state troopers brutally attacked civil rights protesters in Selma, President Lyndon Johnson delivered a stirring speech to a joint session of Congress introducing a bill to end voter discrimination against blacks. The law that it gave birth to, the Voting Rights Act, now hangs in the balance, with oral arguments next week before the Supreme Court. Five conservative justices are skeptical that a centerpiece of the nearly-half-century-old law is constitutional. “I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy,” Johnson said that night, nearly half a century ago. “A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is unkept. The time of justice has now come.” Days later, he submitted legislation to Congress aimed at taking stringent, unprecedented steps to end voter discrimination and disenfranchisement. As Congress took it up, opponents rebelled. “I said it was worse than the Thaddeus Stevens legislation during Reconstruction, sir, and it is,” said Leander Perez, a pro-segregation Louisianan, at a subsequent Senate hearing. “It is the most nefarious — it is inconceivable that Americans would do that to Americans.”

National: Obama: Voting Rights Act Provision Should Be Kept | Huffington Post

President Barack Obama argued Friday for keeping a key provision of federal voting rights law in place, saying it will become harder but not impossible to help people who believe their rights at the polls have been violated if the Supreme Court decides to strike down that part of the law. The court has scheduled oral arguments for Wednesday on a challenge from Shelby County, Ala., near Birmingham, to a section of the Voting Rights Act. The provision requires all or parts of 16 states with a history of racial discrimination, mostly in the South, to get approval from the Justice Department or federal court in Washington before making any changes in the way they hold elections, such as moving a polling place. The appeal argues that places covered by the law have made such progress that Washington oversight is unnecessary. Opponents of the provision also cite racial progress in the decades since the landmark law was enacted in 1965 that led to the election and recent re-election of Obama, the country’s first black president.

National: Obama calms fears over Supreme Court action on voting rights | The Hill

Speaking Thursday to “The Black Eagle” radio show on SiriusXM, Obama said listeners shouldn’t worry too much that discrimination against minority voters will increase. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act next week. “I know in the past some folks have worried that if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, they’re going to lose their right to vote. That’s not the case,” Obama said on the radio show. “People will still have the same rights not to be discriminated against when it comes to voting, you just won’t have this mechanism, this tool, that allows you to kind of stay ahead of certain practices,” Obama said. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires municipalities with a history of disenfranchisement efforts to pre-clear changes to voting practices with the Justice Department or a federal court. The provision was designed to prevent states from instituting poll taxes, literary tests, or other efforts to keep minority voters from the polls that might later be ruled unconstitutional from doing so before an election.

National: Are some civil rights era protections still relevant? Supreme Court will decide | McClatchy

The Justice Department stayed silent when Indiana and Washington state strengthened their voter identification rules. But when Georgia and Texas lawmakers wanted to do the same, they needed federal approval. Now, this different treatment for different states will face a make-or-break test at the Supreme Court. In a potentially landmark case, justices on Wednesday will consider whether it’s time to dismantle a key plank of the historic 1965 Voting Rights Act. “This case presents questions that cut to the very core of our democracy,” said Caroline Frederickson, president of the liberal-leaning American Constitution Society. Passed when state-sanctioned racism was at its most insidious, the Voting Rights Act contains multiple elements designed to root out discriminatory practices. The entire law, originally spanning 19 sections, is not at risk of repeal in the case being heard Wednesday. Instead, the case arising out of Shelby County, Ala., centers primarily on two muscular sections that happen to have the biggest reach, and that the county is challenging.

Editorials: The Supreme Court’s Threat to the Voting Rights Act: A History | Andrew Cohen/The Atlantic

At 10 a.m. next Wednesday, the justices of the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case styled Shelby County v. Holder, one of the most anticipated of the current Term. Agreeing to review an argument made by an Alabama county that it ought finally to be free from one of the key requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the justices will have an opportunity both to lead and to follow the nation as it roils anew in political and legal battle over the rights of the poor, the ill, the young, the car-less, the black, the Hispanic, and the Native American to vote. Nearing its 50th birthday, the act has become a part of our national lore. One of the crowning achievements of the civil rights movement (and of the Johnson Administration), it was designed by its creators to finally give meaningful legal remedies to minority citizens — blacks, mostly, but not exclusively — who for generations had been precluded from voting (or from having their votes fairly counted) by a dizzying flurry of discriminatory state practices. The act didn’t just expand the scope of existing federal civil rights laws. It completely changed the dynamic between voters and state and local governments. And the results are indisputable: There is far less discrimination in voting today than there was half a century ago — and many millions more minority voters.

Alaska: Lawmakers begin debate on voter ID | Peninsula Clarion

Lawmakers have begun deliberations on a bill that would require voters to present photo identification when casting their ballots, but one critic said the geography and ethnic makeup of the state would likely make the law unconstitutional if passed. The House State Affairs Committee began discussing HB3, by Reps. Bob Lynn and Wes Keller, on Thursday. Lynn and Keller serve as the chair and vice-chair of the committee, respectively. “Voting is the very foundation of our Democratic republic,” Lynn said to the committee. “To protect that foundation, voters must be who they say they are.” The bill, as currently drafted, could pose unique practical and constitutional problems for Alaska due to its geography and large native population, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union in Alaska said.

South Carolina: State Officials Divided on Challenge to Voting Rights Act | wltx.com

Aggressive enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act transformed American politics, especially in the South, by making sure minorities had a clear path to the ballot box and an equal shot at public service. Forty-eight years later, after the re-election of an African-American president, the heart of that law is on trial. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Feb. 27 in a case that is sure to ignite a national debate over how far the country has progressed on racial issues and whether minority voters still need extra protection. State officials in South Carolina, where one of the first challenges to the Voting Right Act originated in the 1960s, are split in how they see the most recent case. The case began when Shelby County, Ala., opposed by the Justice Department and civil rights groups, asked courts to declare two key sections of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.

Virginia: Legislators Approve Voter ID Law, May Kill Chances for Federal Bailout | The Nation

Earlier this week, the Virginia House of Delegates passed a photo voter ID law that narrows the list of identification voters are required to show on Election Day to vote. The bill, which now sits before Gov. Bob McDonnell to sign or veto, would allow only a driver’s license or U.S. passport to vote. Without either of those, a voter would have to file a provisional ballot, and then bring the required photo ID to the election board by the Friday after Election Day. If McDonnell signs it, it wouldn’t go into effect until 2014 — when the mid-term congressional elections are held — but it would have to be approved by the federal government first. Since Virginia is a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5, any election law they make has to be pre-cleared by the U.S. Justice Department or the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

National: Advocates Warn Of Dire Consequences If Voting Rights Act Loses In Supreme Court | TPM

Supporters of the Voting Rights Act are painting a bleak picture of what it would mean for the rights of minority voters if the Supreme Court were to strike down the landmark 1965 law’s Section 5, which requires state and local governments with a history of disenfranchising minority voters (i.e. mostly in the south) to receive preclearance from the Justice Department or federal court before changing laws that affect voting. “Broadly speaking, if we didn’t have Section 5 we would find that minority voters are in many places around the covered jurisdictions will have their ability to equally participate in the political process severely compromised,” Julie Fernandes, a civil rights activist and former deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said this week. “We’ll see a lot more of the diluting tactics that we used to have.” The Supreme Court hears oral arguments Wednesday in Shelby County v. Holder, the most serious challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Right Acts in the nearly 50 years since its enactment. The liberal-leaning Center For America Progress held a briefing with reporters in advance of the Supreme Court hearing where experts, including Fernandes, made the case for the validity and necessity of Section 5. Nervous that their side will face five very skeptical justices at oral arguments, they described the part of the law as critical to protecting minority voters’ rights.

Editorials: The partisan politics of election laws | Guy-Uriel E. Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer/The Great Debate (Reuters)

Some of these initiatives may have a disparate racial impact — and might be actionable under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Some may even have been motivated by an intent to discriminate. But many of the actions that affect racial minorities seem to do so for partisan political purposes, not racial reasons.

Unless Congress can stop these partisan initiatives, the parties will increasingly target the other side’s voters for political gain. The American public, meanwhile, ends up as collateral damage.

Editorials: New York Should Hate the Voting Rights Act | Slate Magazine

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the highly anticipated case Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder. At stake is the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision that requires jurisdictions with histories of voter suppression and disenfranchisement to “preclear” any proposed change in electoral procedures with federal authorities before implementation, in order to ensure that they have no discriminatory effects. Unsurprisingly, many of the jurisdictions covered by Section 5 have lined up with Shelby County, urging the court to strike down a provision they believe punishes them for the sins of their grandfathers. Pro-Shelby County amicus briefs, which allow interested third parties to weigh in on the constitutional issues at hand, have been filed by the Republican attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas. But a handful of covered jurisdictions have weighed in on the other side. Most notable among them is New York City, which asserts that Congress is within its constitutional authority to subject the city to special procedures on account of discrimination dating back nearly a century. The reasons why Southern states like Alabama and Georgia are covered by Section 5 are well known. At the close of Reconstruction, the resurgent white elite in these states relied on dastardly legal strategies and violence, up to and including outright murder, to keep African-Americans from voting, especially in the majority-black counties that blanket the Deep South. In other historically majority-minority sections of the country, native-born whites used similar albeit generally less violent voter suppression schemes to keep Latinos from voting, in states like Arizona and Texas, and Native Americans from casting ballots, in places like Alaska and South Dakota.

Virginia: Lawmakers Pass Photo-ID Voting Requirement | NYTimes.com

Virginia lawmakers on Wednesday adopted a strict photo identification requirement for voters, a contentious issue nationally in last year’s presidential election. The Republican-dominated House of Delegates approved a bill passed earlier by the State Senate to require voters to show a government-issued document like a driver’s license, passport or special voter-identification card with a photograph at the polls. If signed into law by Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, Virginia would join four other states with equally strict voter-ID requirements. A similar law in Pennsylvania was temporarily suspended by a state court before the November election. Attempts by Texas and South Carolina to adopt such strict requirements have been turned back by the federal government as violations of the Voting Rights Act. Supporters of voter photo-ID requirements say they prevent fraud. Opponents argue that the laws are meant to suppress turnout by poor and minority voters.

Editorials: The partisan politics of election laws | Guy-Uriel E. Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer/The Great Debate (Reuters)

Many commentators assume that the conservative Supreme Court justices will strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Like Abigail Thernstrom, however, we are not so sure. Congress clearly has the authority to continue to maintain Section 5. If the court does strike it down, though, it will give Congress an opportunity to update the act for the 21st century. In 2012, state legislatures passed many partisan initiatives designed to constrain the right to vote ‑ ranging from efforts to end same-day registration to adding voter identification laws. In Virginia, state senators used one colleague’s absence to pass a new, arguably discriminatory redistricting plan. In Indiana and North Carolina, new proposals would make it harder for some students to vote. Some states are considering tinkering with the way they choose electors to the Electoral College. Some of these initiatives may have a disparate racial impact — and might be actionable under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Some may even have been motivated by an intent to discriminate. But many of the actions that affect racial minorities seem to do so for partisan political purposes, not racial reasons. Unless Congress can stop these partisan initiatives, the parties will increasingly target the other side’s voters for political gain. The American public, meanwhile, ends up as collateral damage.

National: Voting Rights Act In The Supreme Court’s Crosshairs | TPM

When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments next week about the constitutionality of a key element of the Voting Rights Act, the Obama administration and other proponents of the law will be facing five very skeptical justices. Shelby County v. Holder is the latest in a string of landmark cases that will shape the legacy of the Roberts Court. Proponents of the law are extremely nervous, and privately acknowledge that they face a steep uphill climb in winning over a majority of the justices. At issue is the validity of Section 5 of the landmark 1965 law designed to quash voter disenfranchisement efforts such as poll taxes and literacy tests. Section 5 requires states and municipalities with a history of racial discrimination (read: mostly in the south) to seek preclearance from the Justice Department or a federal court before making changes to their voting laws. The law was upheld in 1966 by a Supreme Court that deemed it valid to correct the “insidious and pervasive evil” of racism. The law was most recently reauthorized in 2006 by a nearly unanimous Congress, with Section 5 intact.

Editorials: The More Things Change … | Linda Greenhouse/NYTimes.com

Despite spending a lot of time reading and thinking about the Voting Rights Act case the Supreme Court will hear next week, there’s a puzzle I’m still trying to crack: How can it be that one of the crowning achievements of the civil rights movement, a provision upheld on four previous occasions by the Supreme Court and re-enacted in 2006 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress (98-0 in the Senate, 390-33 in the House), a law that President George W. Bush urged the justices to uphold again four years ago in one of his final acts in office, a law that has demonstrably defeated myriad efforts both flagrant and subtle to suppress or dilute the African-American vote, is now hanging by a thread? Of the hanging-by-a-thread part, there’s little doubt. Four years ago, in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. One v. Holder, a case commonly referred to as Namudno, the Supreme Court came within a hair’s breadth of declaring the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5 unconstitutional. “Things have changed in the South,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. declared in the court’s opinion, an oft-quoted line of pithy constitutional analysis that took its place with the chief justice’s other profound musings on race in America. (The others, so far, are “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race,” dissenting in 2006 from a decision awarding a rare victory to Latino plaintiffs who had sued to invalidate a Texas congressional district; and “The way to end racial discrimination is to stop discriminating by race,” in a 2007 plurality opinion striking down integration-preserving efforts by public school districts in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle.)

Virginia: Photo ID voting mandate passes in Virginia, heads to governor | WJLA.com