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The Supreme Court on Tuesday freed states from special federal oversight under the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, saying the data Congress used to identify the states covered by it was outdated and unfair.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the other conservative members of the court in the majority.
The court did not strike down a provision allowing special federal oversight but said Congress must come up with a new formula based on current data to identify which states should be covered. Proponents of the law, which protects minority voting rights, have said it will be extremely difficult for a Congress bitterly divided along partisan lines to come up with such an agreement.
The act currently covers the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, as well as Alaska and Arizona, and parts of seven other states. It requires them to receive “pre-clearance” from either the attorney general or federal judges before making any changes to election or voting laws.
Roberts said that the court had warned Congress four years ago, in a separate case, that basing the coverage formula on “40-year-old facts” led to serious constitutional questions.
“Congress could have updated the coverage formula at that time, but did not do so,” Roberts wrote. “Its failure to act leaves us today with no choice but to declare [the formula] unconstitutional.”
He added: “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”
He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized the liberals’ disagreement with the decision by reading her dissent from the bench.
She said the the Constitution’s Civil War amendments specifically instruct Congress to pass laws enforcing equal rights and protecting the voting interests of minorities. She noted the 2006 extension of the VRA was approved unanimously in the Senate and signed by President George W. Bush.
“Congress’s decision to renew the act and keep the coverage formula was an altogether rational means to serve the end of achieving what was once the subject of a dream: the equal citizenship stature of all in our polity, a voice to every voter in our democracy undiluted by race,” she said.
She was joined in dissent by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
At stake was Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which even challengers credit with delivering the promise of political inclusion to minority voters and eventually leading to the election of the nation’s first African American president.
The court reviewed the provision for the sixth time since passage in 1965. It survived each challenge.
Reaction was predictable. Conservatives said it was a recognition of state sovereignty and of the fact that the country has changed since the act was first passed. As Roberts noted from the bench and in his opinion, black turnout in recent elections was higher than that of whites.
Civil rights groups were outraged. “I think we should not soft-pedal what is an egregious betrayal of minority voters,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, whose lawyers participated in the case.
“I am deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision today,” President Obama said in a statement. “For nearly 50 years, the Voting Rights Act ... has helped secure the right to vote for millions of Americans. Today’s decision invalidating one of its core provisions upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent.”
Conservatives on the court said during oral arguments that Congress’s decision in 2006 to reauthorize the law was a result not of a studied decision but of what Justice Antonin Scalia called a “phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
Politicians, he said, are afraid to vote against something with the “wonderful” name of the Voting Rights Act.
The court in 2009 considered whether Section 5 was still constitutionally viable. The justices decided that case without a definitive answer but sent an unmistakable message to Congress that the court was dissatisfied with the formula in Section 4 used to determine which states were covered by Section 5.
Section 5 played a prominent role in the lead up to the 2012 election. A judicial panel approved South Carolina’s new voter ID law only after state officials made significant concessions about allowing those without ID to vote.
A court put off Texas’s plan, and another panel of judges told Florida officials to retreat on new restrictions the state had placed on early voting because minority voters disproportionately relied on the expanded voting hours.
But those in the covered states said such challenges could be handled through a normal judicial process, just as they were in other states that revamped their voting laws, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But those seeking to overturn Section 5 said it has outlived its purpose — as a temporary measure to ensure that obstacles such as poll taxes and intimidation do not disenfranchise minority voters.
“The violence, intimidation, and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains,” says the challenge filed by Shelby County, a fast-growing, mostly white suburb south of Birmingham.
A brief filed by the state of Alabama said bloody resistance to African Americans’ voting rights was “particularly responsible” for making Section 5 necessary.
The state’s attorney general, Luther Strange, said in the brief that Alabama had a well-earned place among the covered jurisdictions when the act was passed in 1965 and reauthorized in 1970, 1975 and 1982. But a 2006 reauthorization, which extended federal control for an additional 25 years, went too far, he said.
“It is time for Alabama and the other covered jurisdictions to resume their roles as equal and sovereign parts of these United States,” the brief said.
The case is Shelby County v. Holder.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the other conservative members of the court in the majority.
The court did not strike down a provision allowing special federal oversight but said Congress must come up with a new formula based on current data to identify which states should be covered. Proponents of the law, which protects minority voting rights, have said it will be extremely difficult for a Congress bitterly divided along partisan lines to come up with such an agreement.
The act currently covers the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, as well as Alaska and Arizona, and parts of seven other states. It requires them to receive “pre-clearance” from either the attorney general or federal judges before making any changes to election or voting laws.
Roberts said that the court had warned Congress four years ago, in a separate case, that basing the coverage formula on “40-year-old facts” led to serious constitutional questions.
“Congress could have updated the coverage formula at that time, but did not do so,” Roberts wrote. “Its failure to act leaves us today with no choice but to declare [the formula] unconstitutional.”
He added: “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”
He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized the liberals’ disagreement with the decision by reading her dissent from the bench.
She said the the Constitution’s Civil War amendments specifically instruct Congress to pass laws enforcing equal rights and protecting the voting interests of minorities. She noted the 2006 extension of the VRA was approved unanimously in the Senate and signed by President George W. Bush.
“Congress’s decision to renew the act and keep the coverage formula was an altogether rational means to serve the end of achieving what was once the subject of a dream: the equal citizenship stature of all in our polity, a voice to every voter in our democracy undiluted by race,” she said.
She was joined in dissent by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
At stake was Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which even challengers credit with delivering the promise of political inclusion to minority voters and eventually leading to the election of the nation’s first African American president.
The court reviewed the provision for the sixth time since passage in 1965. It survived each challenge.
Reaction was predictable. Conservatives said it was a recognition of state sovereignty and of the fact that the country has changed since the act was first passed. As Roberts noted from the bench and in his opinion, black turnout in recent elections was higher than that of whites.
Civil rights groups were outraged. “I think we should not soft-pedal what is an egregious betrayal of minority voters,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, whose lawyers participated in the case.
“I am deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision today,” President Obama said in a statement. “For nearly 50 years, the Voting Rights Act ... has helped secure the right to vote for millions of Americans. Today’s decision invalidating one of its core provisions upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent.”
Conservatives on the court said during oral arguments that Congress’s decision in 2006 to reauthorize the law was a result not of a studied decision but of what Justice Antonin Scalia called a “phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
Politicians, he said, are afraid to vote against something with the “wonderful” name of the Voting Rights Act.
The court in 2009 considered whether Section 5 was still constitutionally viable. The justices decided that case without a definitive answer but sent an unmistakable message to Congress that the court was dissatisfied with the formula in Section 4 used to determine which states were covered by Section 5.
Section 5 played a prominent role in the lead up to the 2012 election. A judicial panel approved South Carolina’s new voter ID law only after state officials made significant concessions about allowing those without ID to vote.
A court put off Texas’s plan, and another panel of judges told Florida officials to retreat on new restrictions the state had placed on early voting because minority voters disproportionately relied on the expanded voting hours.
But those in the covered states said such challenges could be handled through a normal judicial process, just as they were in other states that revamped their voting laws, such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But those seeking to overturn Section 5 said it has outlived its purpose — as a temporary measure to ensure that obstacles such as poll taxes and intimidation do not disenfranchise minority voters.
“The violence, intimidation, and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains,” says the challenge filed by Shelby County, a fast-growing, mostly white suburb south of Birmingham.
A brief filed by the state of Alabama said bloody resistance to African Americans’ voting rights was “particularly responsible” for making Section 5 necessary.
The state’s attorney general, Luther Strange, said in the brief that Alabama had a well-earned place among the covered jurisdictions when the act was passed in 1965 and reauthorized in 1970, 1975 and 1982. But a 2006 reauthorization, which extended federal control for an additional 25 years, went too far, he said.
“It is time for Alabama and the other covered jurisdictions to resume their roles as equal and sovereign parts of these United States,” the brief said.
The case is Shelby County v. Holder.
I'm glad to hear that racism is no longer a problem in places like Mississippi.
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