Editorials: The Supreme Court needs to settle American Samoa birthright citizenship | Mark Joseph Stern/Slate

Soon, the Supreme Court will decide whether to take a case of astounding constitutional importance. Its outcome could alter the rules governing citizenship, equal protection, and the power of the federal government. And it centers around a tiny chain of islands that you probably cannot find on a map. The question: Can Congress decide that an entire group of Americans—born in America, raised in America, allegiant to America—does not deserve United States citizenship? American Samoans, the group in question, have been Americans since 1900, when the United States acquired their territory in the midst of an imperialist expansion. Since then, residents of America’s other territories have either achieved independence or gained U.S. citizenship. But in 2016, American Samoans stand alone: Unlike people born in, say, Puerto Rico or Guam, they are not granted citizenship at birth. Instead, they are considered “noncitizen nationals,” a legally dubious term that effectively renders them stateless, a mark of second-class status imprinted on their (American) passports.

National: Jury Out on Effectiveness as Some States Make Voting Easier | The New York Times

A parade of Republican-controlled states in recent years has made it more difficult to cast a ballot, imposing strict identification requirements at polling stations, paring back early-voting periods and requiring proof of citizenship to register. Then there is Oregon. It is leading what could become a march in the opposite direction. From January through April, Oregon added nearly 52,000 new voters to its rolls by standing the usual voter-registration process on its head. Under a new law, most citizens no longer need to fill out and turn in a form to become a voter. Instead, everyone who visits a motor-vehicle bureau and meets the requirements is automatically enrolled. Choosing a political party — or opting out entirely — is a matter of checking off preferences on a postcard mailed later to registrants’ homes. With the change, Oregon now boasts perhaps the nation’s most painless electoral process; mail-in ballots long ago did away with polling places’ snaking lines and balky voting machines

National: Voting Rights at the Crossroads | The Atlantic

The November election will be the first presidential contest to take place since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to strip some of the major protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required states with a history of voter discrimination to get federal clearance before changing their voting laws. Seventeen states will have new voting restrictions in place for the first time. Among them, Wisconsin, Texas, and North Carolina have tightened their photo ID requirements; Kansas now requires proof of citizenship to cast a ballot; and Arizona has made it a felony for people to collect ballots from others and take them to the polls. Some people—mostly Democrats—say these laws disenfranchise poor and minority voters. But others—mostly Republicans—defend the stringent requirements as part of an effort to prevent voter fraud (an occurrence scholars largely consider to be a myth, and in some states, is more rare than a lightning strike). But just as some states are making it more difficult to vote, others are passing legislation to make it easier.

Voting Blogs: Bringing Common Sense to the Sunshine State | Ciara Torres-Spelliscy/Brennan Center for Justice

In 2000, Florida became ground zero for the debate over poor election administration as Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush both thought for weeks that they had won Florida’s (then) 25 electoral votes and therefore the presidency. The Supreme Court resolved the controversy in the infamous Bush v. Gore ruling. Florida’s election administration problems in 2000 included the poorly-designed butterfly ballot, in which the name of a candidate and the hole to be punched for the candidate were slightly askew; resulting in one vote total on day one and a different vote total in a mandatory machine recount. There were also long lines at many precincts, fueling voter dissatisfaction. In 2012, Florida was the next Florida. Fortunately for the nation, the Electoral College vote between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney wasn’t close and did not hinge on Florida’s (now) 29 electoral votes. Florida in 2012 witnessed such long lines at certain polling places that voters had to wait seven hours or more to vote.

Australia: Norfolk Islanders to have federal and NSW laws but no vote in state election | The Guardian

Norfolk Islanders will not have the right to vote in Australian state elections, despite the island’s legislation being abolished and replaced by federal and New South Wales laws. From July, the NSW government will deliver all state-level services, such as health and education. Islanders will also fall under the federal Medicare system and be eligible for social benefits, including the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Australia’s tax and immigration systems will also apply. The island lost its right to self-govern last May when the commonwealth abolished its autonomy, and the island has been in a transition period ever since as it prepares to come under Australian laws. While islanders will have the right to vote in the federal election and will be allocated to the electorate of Canberra, the NSW Legislative Council this week passed legislation about the application of services to Norfolk Islanders. Despite this, they will not have a right to vote in state elections as part of the legislation.

Malta: Buy a passport, get your vote free | Times of Malta

The government calls it an individual investment programme intended to attract to Malta people with talent and money to invest. The more down to earth deem it a sale of Maltese/European passports and information tabled in Parliament indicates that is just what the IIP actually is: a sale. Over 80 per cent of the 143 successful applicants so far have signed five-year rent contracts rather than opting to buy a property in Malta. The implication is that they have no intention of settling here permanently, if at all. Chris Kalin, president of Henley & Partners, which runs the programme, was more succinct when he said that many of his clients were only interested in getting a Maltese passport rather than living here. In other words, they want a passport to Europe. The IIP scheme, which had not been included in the Labour Party electoral programme, was controversial from the start and amended several times along the way until a settlement was reached with the European Union.

Editorials: The fire next time | The Economist

The 45-mile drive from Union Springs, seat of Bullock County, Alabama, to Montgomery, the state capital, might not seem very arduous. But for some locals, the distance itself is not the main obstacle. Going to Montgomery, as some now must to get a driver’s licence, means the best part of a day off work for two people, the test-sitter and his chauffeur (there is no public transport). That is a stretch for employees in inflexible, minimum-wage jobs—and there are lots of them in Union Springs, a tidy town in which the missing letters on the shuttered department store’s façade betray a quiet decline, surrounded by the sort of spacious but dilapidated poverty characteristic of Alabama’s Black Belt. To some, this trek is not just an inconvenience but a scandal. The state’s voters must now show one of several eligible photo-IDs to cast a ballot, of which driving licences are the most common kind. Last year, supposedly to save money, the issuing office in Union Springs, formerly open for a day each week, was closed, along with others in mostly black, Democratic-leaning counties. After an outcry, the service was reinstated for a day per month; at other times, applicants head to Montgomery. For James Poe, a funeral-home director and head of the NAACP in Bullock County, the combination of a new voter-ID law and reduced hours is “insanity”. Such impediments may not be as flagrant as when, as a young man in Union Springs, he had to interpret the constitution in order to vote, but, he thinks, they are obnoxious all the same.

Ohio: Federal judge blocks Ohio law that eliminated ‘Golden Week’ voting | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a state law that eliminated “Golden Week,” several days when Ohio voters could both register to vote and cast a ballot. The 2014 law violates both the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson wrote in his opinion siding with Democrats who challenged the law. The state will appeal the ruling, a state attorney general spokesman said. If the ruling stands, Ohio voters will have 35 days to cast a ballot this November instead of 28 and will be able to register to vote and cast a ballot at the same time. In 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law on behalf of the Ohio chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and League of Women Voters and several African-American churches. A federal district court judge struck down the law, but the state was granted a stay. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted and Statehouse Republicans argued that Ohio provides 28 days of absentee voting by mail and in-person, making it one of the most expansive voting systems in the country.

Editorials: The United States has a moral obligation to give Puerto Rico the right to vote | Noah Berlatzsky/Quartz

Voting rights has become an increasingly partisan issue. In Wisconsin, new voter ID laws led to brutal lines at the polls in urban areas—a development designed, even according to Republicans themselves, to suppress Democratic turnout. In Virginia at the end of April, governor Terry McAuliffe re-enfranchised all felons who had finished parole. In theory, the move returned the vote to 200,000 people. This was a refutation of a policy originally designed to explicitly deny black people the vote. It was also, potentially, a way to give more votes to more minority and poor voters, and tip a narrowly balanced purple state more Democratic in the US presidential election. The focus on voter IDs and felon disenfranchisement—while important—has inadvertently obscured other voting rights issues. Every year, with little comment, the United States denies millions of people representation in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and other territories. Washington, DC, has a population of over 650,000 people. That makes it larger than the states of Vermont or Wyoming, and yet it has no voting representatives in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. Puerto Rico has a population of around 3.5 million people, which makes it more populous than states like Nevada, Iowa, and Arkansas. But not only do Puerto Ricans lack Congressional representation, they also cannot vote in presidential elections (unlike residents of DC, who are entitled to three votes in the Electoral College).

National: ‘No Vote, No Voice,’ Says Newly Formed Voting Rights Caucus | The Hill

Ahead of what’s likely to be the first presidential election since 1965 without the Voting Rights Act in full effect, 50 members of Congress have joined to form the Voting Rights Caucus. The caucus will work to educate the public about voting restrictions enacted since the Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. “The caucus is long overdue,” said Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, speaking at a press conference outside the House of Representatives Tuesday to launch the caucus. Seventeen states will have voting rights restrictions in effect for the first time in a presidential election since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Ohio: A Win for Early Voting—and Democrats—in Ohio | The Atlantic

It’s been a rough few week for voting-rights advocates, who have seen a judge reject a challenge to North Carolina’s strict voting law and seen Missouri legislators successfully place a ballot referendum that would amend the state constitution to require photo ID. But they got a win in Ohio today, where a judge in Columbus ruled that a recent law that eliminated a week in which citizens could both register and vote early was unconstitutional. Judge Michael Watson found that the change would disparately impact minority voters, and that the law violated both the 14th Amendment and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Malta: Electoral Commissioner was ‘unaware’ of voting rights granted to IIP applicants | Malta Today

As the opposition is fighting the voting rights granted to some 91 IIP citizens, Chief Electoral Commissioner Joseph Church said that the Electoral Commission had been “unaware” of the constitutional breaches that took place until it was flagged by the PN. Contacted by MaltaToday, Church also confirmed that the commission has held an informal meeting with Identity Malta – the authority responsible from the processing of IIP applicants – to investigate the allegations being made. “The commission is currently carrying out a fact-finding exercise to determine what action to take,” Church added. Insisting that the investigation was still a work-in-progress, Church would not say what sort of action, if any, could be taken in the near future. “We are leaving all options open, The Commission will be meeting tomorrow to discuss further the issue.”

Malta: Passport buyers still given the right to vote despite red flags raised by Electoral Commission | The Malta Independent

Desk officers at the Electoral Commission sent e-mails to a number of IIP citizenship holders to inform them that they did not meet the necessary criteria, as laid out by Malta’s Constitution, to be placed on the Electoral Register. Despite this, these same individuals were still given a right to vote in Malta. In one particular e-mail exchange, an Electoral Commission desk officer sent an e-mail to an IIP citizenship holder about how according to her application, she did not meet the criteria to be able to vote. This e-mail was forwarded by the applicant to an IIP agent asking him/her to “sort this out.” The IIP agent then e-mailed the Electoral Commission (photo above) to halt the processing of the application. Again, despite the desk officer doing their job, the person was still placed on the Electoral Register.

District of Columbia: Clinton calls for making DC the 51st state | The Washington Post

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton called for making the nation’s capital the country’s 51st state on Wednesday, promising to be a “vocal champion” for D.C. statehood. She blasted presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for failing to say whether D.C. residents should have the same voting rights as other Americans. “In the case of our nation’s capital, we have an entire populace that is routinely denied a voice in its own democracy. . . . Washingtonians serve in the military, serve on juries, and pay taxes just like everyone else. And yet, they don’t even have a vote in Congress,” Clinton wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Informer, an African American weekly newspaper.

Washington: Final bill for ACLU case to cost Yakima County $3 million | Yakima Herald

The final invoices are in, the ACLU has been awarded costs and fees, and Yakima is out $3 million as the book closes on its long-running voting rights battle in federal court. From 2012 through April of this year, the city spent $1,167,552 on attorney fees and expert witness costs, according to records obtained from the city. With $1,846,014 paid to the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union under a court order, Yakima’s final costs in the case are at $3,013,566. City legal staff said they do not anticipate more costs, although population changes in the years to come could lead to redistricting adjustments that may require legal services.

Editorials: It’s Time to Expand Voting Rights | Harry Kresky/Huffington Post

This presidential primary season has exposed serious fault lines in our election system. One has been known for years. The voting rights of African Americans and Latinos continue to be compromised. Another has become the focus of widespread attention by the media and by ordinary Americans for the first time. There is a vast block of non-aligned voters who are systematically excluded from partisan primaries, where the decisions that effectively determine who will take office are often made. Independents have militantly protested their exclusion from a presidential nominating process organized around party primaries and caucuses. A look at the recent Arizona and New York presidential primaries helps us understand the interplay between these two voting rights issues.

US Virgin Islands: Territorial Litigants Respond To Federal Opposition To Voting Rights Challenge | Virgin Islands Consortium

As Democratic presidential primaries approach in Guam (May 7), U.S. Virgin Islands (June 4), and Puerto Rico (June 5), and as the Republican and Democratic National Conventions draw near, voting rights advocates in U.S. territories are taking action both inside and outside the courtroom to bring an end to the disenfranchisement of the more than 4 million Americans living in U.S. territories. Yesterday, plaintiffs from Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands filed a response in the Northern District of Illinois to the federal government’s opposition to a voting rights lawsuit seeking expanded voting rights in U.S. territories. At the same time, We the People Project – a nonprofit advocacy organization that fights for voting rights in U.S. territories and the District of Columbia – is releasing a proposal for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would provide full enjoyment of the right to vote for U.S. citizens who call these areas home.

Editorials: The Retreat From Voting Rights | William Barber II/The New York Times

On Monday, Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court in Winston-Salem, N.C., upheld legislation passed in 2013 that imposed far-reaching restrictions on voting across this state, including strict voter-identification requirements. Judge Schroeder justified his decision by claiming that robust turnout in 2014 proved that the law did not suppress the black vote. But in reality, his ruling defended the worst attack on voting rights since the 19th century. That attack began almost immediately after a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, which weakened Section 5 of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Section 5 required federal pre-approval of changes to voting laws in places with a history of discrimination, including parts of North Carolina. Within hours of that ruling, lawmakers in Raleigh filed H.B. 589, proposing some of the toughest voting rules in the country. Referring to Shelby, one sponsor expressed his relief that curtailing voting protections could move forward now that the “headache” of the Voting Rights Act had been removed. The Legislature passed the bill, and it was signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican.

Editorials: Should Everybody Vote? | Gary Gutting/The New York Times

At election time we inevitably hear earnest pleas for everyone to vote. Voter participation is a data point often cited in political studies, along with an assumption that the higher the percentage, the better: 100 percent participation is the goal. But we rarely question this belief, or objectively consider whether everyone who can vote ought to vote. Pleas for everyone to vote ignore the fact that not voting can itself be a way of voting. The trumpery of the current Republican primary campaign has led some of us to decide that they want no part of it and so will not vote. Not voting, then, can be a protest against all the available candidates. It’s hard, however, to distinguish such protest from mere apathy or forgetfulness, and we ought to provide a way of registering it in the polling booth. We might, for example, add as a ballot choice “No Acceptable Candidate.”

District of Columbia: Kasich on D.C. voting rights: ‘That’s just more votes in the Democratic Party.’ | The Washington Post

When asked his position on D.C. voting rights, Republican presidential contender John Kasich didn’t pretend to draw on any constitutional clause or existing law to explain his stance against it. Instead, the Ohio governor stated the political reason that many already perceive as the biggest obstacle standing between D.C. and congressional voting representation: Giving D.C. voting representatives in Congress would mean more Democrats in Congress. “What it really gets down to if you want to be honest is because they know that’s just more votes in the Democratic Party,” Kasich said Wednesday during an interview with The Washington Post editorial board.

National: 1,240 arrested in past week as “Democracy Spring” movement against money in politics spreads throughout U.S. | Salon

It was one of the most massive acts of civil disobedience in recent U.S. history. Over the past week, well over 1,000 people were arrested in an enormous sit-in protest at the U.S. Capitol. The demonstration is part of a new movement that calls itself “Democracy Spring.” Activists are calling for ending the chokehold money has on U.S. politics, overturning Citizens United and restoring voting rights. On April 2, activists launched a colossal 10-day, 140-mile march from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. This was the preface to the mass arrests. At least 1,240 protesters were arrested in the week from Monday, April 11 to Monday, April 18, according to police, on charges of crowding, obstructing or incommoding. Some activists even tied themselves to scaffolding in the Capitol rotunda.

Editorials: The Battle Over “One Person, One Vote,” Has Just Begun | Carl Klarner and Dan Smith/The American Prospect

After the Supreme Court’s politically consequential decision in Evenwel v. Abbott this month, supporters of the principle of “one-person, one vote” breathed a sigh of relief. The Court unanimously ruled that states may continue to draw legislative districts based on total population, instead of on a new standard—the number of registered or eligible voters—that would have excluded non-citizen immigrants, youth under 18, people who are or were incarcerated, and anyone else not registered to vote. The ruling stymied a challenge brought by conservative activists in Texas who set out to upend the practice of apportioning legislative districts based on population, which had been settled law for five decades. A ruling in the challengers’ favor could have triggered mass redrawing of legislative district lines around the country, most likely to the advantage of Republicans.

National: Election year brings new focus to voter rights in courts, legislatures | The Kansas City Star

Eric and Ivanka Trump learned this week they won’t be able to vote for their dad, Donald, in New York’s primary Tuesday. They didn’t register as Republicans in time. Trump was philosophical. “They were, you know, unaware of the rules,” he ruefully told Fox News. The story prompted chuckles in some political and media circles. But it also helped illustrate an ongoing truth: In 2016, America’s state-based election laws can confuse even the most interested voters. From a federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kan., Thursday, to Arizona and beyond, lawyers are arguing over how and when we vote. Voting rules are a confusing, contradictory hodgepodge from state to state and sometimes county to county, many experts say, often based more on perceived political advantage than fair exercise of the franchise. Consider: You can cast an early ballot in Kansas, but not in Missouri. You need a picture ID to vote in Texas, but not in California. In Colorado you can register on Election Day; in Arkansas, you must be on the registrar’s books 30 days before going to the polls.

National: Why Thousands of Americans Are Lining Up to Get Arrested in D.C. | Rolling Stone

Chanting, “Money ain’t speech, corporations aren’t people!” and “We are the 99 percent!” around 425 protesters were arrested Monday in a mass sit-in on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and more have returned to face arrest Tuesday. The demonstration, called Democracy Spring, is advocating a set of reforms the organizers have dubbed the “democracy movement,” demanding Congress amend campaign finance laws and restore the Voting Rights Act, among other actions. For about five hours under the windy shadow of the looming Rotunda, at least eight police buses roll across the sandstone Capitol plaza to haul away the last of the peaceful protesters, where participants — some costumed in green dollar-bill suits and Lady Liberty garb — have overwhelmed a Capitol Police processing center, sending protesters to a nearby overflow facility. Police records suggest Monday was the largest spate of mass arrests in at least a decade at the U.S. Capitol, and close observers of Washington activism say it may have been the largest since the Vietnam War.

Arizona: Democratic Party, Clinton and Sanders campaigns to sue Arizona over voting rights | The Washington Post

The Democratic Party and the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will sue the state of Arizona over voter access to the polls after the state’s presidential primary last month left thousands of residents waiting as long as five hours to vote. The lawsuit, which will be filed on Friday, focuses on Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, where voters faced the longest lines on March 22 during the Democratic and Republican primaries after the county cut the number of polling places by 85 percent since 2008. Arizona’s “alarmingly inadequate number of voting centers resulted in severe, inexcusable burdens on voters county-wide, as well as the ultimate disenfranchisement of untold numbers of voters who were unable or unwilling to wait in intolerably long lines,” the lawsuit says. The lack of voting places was “particularly burdensome” on Maricopa County’s black, Hispanic and Native American communities, which had fewer polling locations than white communities and in some cases no places to vote at all, the lawsuit alleges.

Kansas: ACLU asks federal court to block Kansas voter ID law | The Fiscal Times

The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday will seek to block a Kansas state law that requires people to prove American citizenship if they want to register to vote while applying for a driver’s license. The civil rights group will ask a federal judge in Kansas City, Kansas, to issue a preliminary injunction pending the outcome of a lawsuit the group filed in February. The ACLU claims Kansas is making illegal demands for additional proof of citizenship, violating the so-called Motor-Voter Law that Congress passed in 1993 to boost voter registration for federal elections by allowing voters to register at motor vehicle departments. The Kansas law requiring documents like a birth certificate or U.S. passport for voter registration, which took effect Jan. 1, 2013, is one of numerous voter ID laws passed by Republican-led state legislatures in recent years. The ACLU alleges that Kansas goes beyond what is required by federal law.

Alabama: DOJ asked to investigate for possible voting rights violations | Alabama Today

The Washington, D.C.-based Voting Rights Institute (VRI) has called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Daphne, Alabama’s City Council’s March 21 decision to reduce the number of polling places in the city from five to two. VRI, a project of the American Constitution Society, Campaign Legal Center and Georgetown University Law Center, sent a letter Wednesday to the DOJ after receiving a complaint from African American leader and voter in Daphne, Willie Williams.

Editorials: The Price for Obama’s Success: Voter Suppression | Jeffrey Moualim/Huffington Post

The sustaining symmetry of democracy is the right to vote. The right gives each individual, if nothing else, the belief that he or she can help shape their life and the destiny of their country. Voting is the potter’s wheel of a vibrant democratic process, it could turn the future toward a different direction, thereby reshaping what once was. Barack Obama and the Democrats swept into office on the promise of progressive ideas and remedies for the then mushrooming financial crisis and social justice inequities that gripped the nation in 2008. While having a majority in congress for two years President Obama shepherded landmark legislation in affordable health care (ACA) for the uninsured, Wall Street reform (Dodd-Frank) which helped to promote progressive culture. This would ultimately lead to declaring DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) unconstitutional, supporting gay marriage as a civil right, and a serious thrust to reform the broken immigration system without having his party having a majority in congress. And in reaction to gun massacres like Sandy Hook, Obama also battled (without success) in tightening the laws on background checks for buying guns — more specifically high-kill capacity, semi-automatic weapons.

Arizona: Lawsuit Alleges Voter Suppression in Presidential Preference Election | Phoenix New Times

For all those Arizonans out there worried about voter suppression during the presidential preference vote, rest assured that a local activist with a history of taking on problematic elections is trying to get to the bottom of what happened here. John Brakey, co-founder of AUDIT-AZ (Americans United for Democracy, Integrity, and Transparency in Elections) filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court against election officials, both accusing them of misconduct and demanding a partial recount of ballots. As New Times has written previously, Maricopa County’s attempt to save money by drastically cutting the number of polling stations for the March 22 election totally backfired. Thousands waited more than two hours to vote – some as long as five hours – and the lines at some polling stations still were wrapped around the block as the first results trickled in at 8 p.m.

National: A Hamstrung SCOTUS Is About To Have A Mess Of Voting Lawsuits At Its Doorstep | TPM

The signs that the Supreme Court is grappling with a depleted bench are starting to show. But what has been a trickle of tie-votes, bizarre orders and slowed activity could turn into a series of orders with contradictory effects as the court is confronted with an onslaught of election-related litigation in the lead-up to Nov. 8. As the last stop for lawsuits challenging voting restrictions and administrative practices, the Supreme Court would normally see an increase in those cases as the 2016 election draws closer. But the ideologically split court will be facing more than the usual uptick in requests for the justices to intervene in legal battles over voting laws. The 2016 election marks the first presidential election since the Supreme Court crippled the Voting Rights Act and ushered in a wave of voting restrictions now tied up in lawsuits. The Supreme Court will be without its decisive ninth vote just as voting rights advocates will be asking it to come to terms with its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision.