Voting Rights - Round 2

In the wake of last month's Supreme Court decision to strike down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department and the federal government are making known their revamped approach to combating discrimination and unlawful hinderances in the realm of election voting.  At the time of the high court's 5-4 ruling I wrote a post outlining what the Voting Rights Act of 1965 actually was, but now I want to provide a few updates on the current landscape.  

On June 25, the Supreme Court struck down section 4(b) as unconstitutional, instructing Congress to determine a new formula for pre-clearance.  As I discussed in my earlier post, section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act is the provision of the law which determined what states and districts needed to obtain a clearance with the Justice Department before changing their election laws.  The clearance formula was defined as those districts which had voting tests in place in November 1964 and had less than 50% turnout in that years presidential election.  Although, if a district or state was able to prove there had been no cases of voter discrimination for ten years, they would be allowed to apply for pre-clearance removal.  It is important to note that while the Supreme Court threw out section 4(b), they upheld section 5, which declares states as determined by a Congressional formula must obtain clearance from the Justice Department when seeking to change any voting law or ordinance.  So while the high court removed a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they upheld the framework and left it up to Congress to develop a new way in determining which states will be subjected to pre-clearance.

The New Front:  While the country waits for Congress to determine a new formula to apply section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is taking steps to continue the fight against voter discrimination.  While many might suggest voter discrimination and disenfranchisement is a thing of the past, the facts tell a different story.  In the past few years several states have passed sweeping new voter ID laws and state-wide redistricting, which many have argued unfairly affect minorities, the youth, and the poor.  Section 4(b) allowed the Justice Department to take a closer look and slow down many of these laws passing through the state legislatures, however, with the Supreme Court's ruling all of the previously covered districts were suddenly free from all of the law's requirements.  In fact, the state of Texas took only two hours after the Supreme Court ruling to announce they were implementing their new strict voter ID law and redistricting map.  The high court's ruling means the Justice Department would have to take new steps in order to apply section 5 and fight to protect the rights of at risk voters.  

Last Thursday, the Justice Department filed a "statement of interest" on a current suit in a federal court in San Antonio, asking the court to impose a ten year mandate of pre-clearance for any voting law change for the state of Texas.  The Justice Department claimed in their filing that in Texas, there is a history of "pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities", and the state should be required to get clearance for any voting law changes.  The federal court in San Antonio will issue their ruling soon and we will have a better understanding of how the Justice Department can enforce the remaining sections of the Voting Rights Act.  Numerous other states have attempted to implement similar redistricting and voter ID laws, while the DOJ has vowed to take the fight to those individual states just as they have done in Texas.