Supreme Court Guts Key Voting Rights Act Provision
From the Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court nullified a core provision of the Voting Rights Act in an ideologically divided ruling that eroded a landmark of the civil-rights era and threw the issue into the lap of a gridlocked Congress.
In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said Jim-Crow era discrimination no longer justified requiring a group of mostly Southern states to seek Washington's approval before changing election practices. Joined by the court's other conservatives, he said the court had to act to uphold states' sovereignty, sparking a dissent from liberals who said the ruling would undermine progress made since the law was passed in 1965 to ensure fair treatment at the polls.
Tuesday's ruling substantially eases the path for lawmakers in states that had been under federal supervision, which now can immediately implement changes in their election procedures without first obtaining clearance from the Justice Department. Nine states and portions of six others, primarily in the South and largely now under Republican control, are affected. Some, such as Texas, have clashed with the Justice Department over measures ranging from legislative redistricting to voter-identification laws.
The court, ruling in a challenge brought by Shelby County, Ala., left standing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which gives the federal government authority over states that historically suppressed minority votes. But that section was effectively nullified by the court, which said the formula used to identity such jurisdictions, contained in Section 4, is not constitutionally valid because it is based on decades-old voter-participation data.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Wall Street Journal
The Supreme Court nullified a core provision of the Voting Rights Act in an ideologically divided ruling that eroded a landmark of the civil-rights era and threw the issue into the lap of a gridlocked Congress.
In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said Jim-Crow era discrimination no longer justified requiring a group of mostly Southern states to seek Washington's approval before changing election practices. Joined by the court's other conservatives, he said the court had to act to uphold states' sovereignty, sparking a dissent from liberals who said the ruling would undermine progress made since the law was passed in 1965 to ensure fair treatment at the polls.
Tuesday's ruling substantially eases the path for lawmakers in states that had been under federal supervision, which now can immediately implement changes in their election procedures without first obtaining clearance from the Justice Department. Nine states and portions of six others, primarily in the South and largely now under Republican control, are affected. Some, such as Texas, have clashed with the Justice Department over measures ranging from legislative redistricting to voter-identification laws.
The court, ruling in a challenge brought by Shelby County, Ala., left standing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which gives the federal government authority over states that historically suppressed minority votes. But that section was effectively nullified by the court, which said the formula used to identity such jurisdictions, contained in Section 4, is not constitutionally valid because it is based on decades-old voter-participation data.
Read more in our daily News Update...