Archive | Voting Rights Act

Election law maven Rick Hasen writes: I have now had a chance to review the text the Voting Rights Amendments Act of 2014 introduced today by Representatives Sensenbrenner and Conyers (with parallel legislation being introduced by Senator Leahy in the Senate). I believe parts of the VRAA are likely constitutional (including the new coverage formula), […]

Joey Fishkin has an excellent post on some of the many voting changes that previously-covered jurisdictions are implementing (or may implement) now that they are not covered by Section Five of the Voting Rights Act. He devotes particular attention to some suspicious-sounding “shenanigans” (his word) in Beaumont, Texas, and makes the general observation: [T]he greatest […]

So the big Voting Rights Act news of the day is that the Department of Justice will be asking a court to “bail in” the state of Texas for preclearance under the Voting Rights Act. (This involves a separate provision of the Voting Rights Act, Section 3, codified at 42 U.S.C. 1973a(c).) Rick Hasen has […]

Several commenters asked me to expand a bit on the constitutional questions raised by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. While I doubt that I can do so with a thoroughness that would satisfy the Volokh commentariat (can anything satisfy the Volokh commentariat?), I thought I’d lay out a few more thoughts. I don’t […]

Justice Stevens has not been shy in his retirement about telling us what he thinks about current controversies at the Supreme Court. In an essay at the New York Review of Books (reviewing Gary May, Bending Toward Justice), he discusses the Court’s decision in Shelby County. I found this passage the most interesting: The statistics […]

In a speech today, Attorney General Holder announced that he has “directed the Department’s Civil Rights Division to shift resources to the enforcement of Voting Rights Act provisions that were not affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling – including Section 2.” Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is the one that nationwide forbids voting […]

For those who are not familiar with Will Baude’s blogging, here are two recent posts on Shelby County from PrawfsBlawg. Congressional Power and the Reconstruction Amendments Problems with Shelby County These posts might be of particular interest to those who found my post on the decision inadequate.

In several places I’ve seen the same question posed about the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder: “What part of the Constitution supports the decision?” Steve Benen, for instance, writes: as I read the ruling (pdf) this morning, I was looking for something specific: why the court majority considers Sec. 4 of the Voting […]