The Supreme Court Tuesday struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, ruling unconstitutional a provision of the landmark civil rights legislation used to promote the political power of minority voters across large swaths of the southern United States for nearly four decades.
In a 5-4 ruling that split the court along ideological lines, the court ended a requirement that some or all areas in 15 states get advance approval from the Justice Department or a panel of federal judges for all changes to voting laws, procedures and even polling place locations.
The court’s conservative majority said that when Congress reauthorized the law in 2006 it did not have sufficient basis to re-adopt a formula that is essentially the same as the one used when the law was first passed in 1965.
”Congress — if it is to divide the States — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions. It cannot rely simply on the past,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “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.”
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Lawmakers “reenacted a formula based on 40-year-old facts, having no logical relationship to the present day,” Roberts wrote. Despite “thousands of pages of evidence” Congress accumulated in 2006, “we cannot pretend that we are reviewing an updated statute or try our hand at updating the statute ourselves, based on the new record compiled by Congress.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court’s three other liberals, complained that the majority ignored significant evidence of continuing racial discrimination and efforts to interfere with the rights of minority voters.
Roberts argued that Congress essentially punted in 2006, finding it politically inconvenient to tinker with a formula that sweeps in most states in the deep South as well as Alaska, Arizona, parts of New York City, and various other counties and towns.
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“We are not ignoring the record; we are simply recognizing that it played no role in shaping the statutory formula before us today,” the chief justice wrote.
Those challenging the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance provision, known as Section 5, argued that it unfairly punishes the covered states and communities by singling them out for special requirements based on evidence of racial discrimination in 1965 rather than the present day. The challengers also claimed that the rule placed costly and cumbersome burdens on the covered jurisdictions by requiring that changes as minor as a shift in polling places be submitted to Washington for approval.
Supporters of keeping the law intact urged the justices to respect Congress’s judgment that the preclearance procedure was still needed to respond to various tactics that have been used to limit the voting power of African Americans and other minorities.
In 2006, the Senate backed reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in a unanimous 98-0 vote. The House signed on by a lopsided margin of 390-to-33. President George W. Bush, flanked by civil rights leaders, held a Rose Garden ceremony to sign the bill, which extended the preclearance rule through 2031.
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In last fall’s election, the Voting Rights Act’s preclearance rule played a central role in derailing so-called Voter ID legislation in several of the states where it was passed. Federal courts blocked such a measure in Texas and effectively postponed such legislation from taking effect in South Carolina. A Mississippi law was blocked by the Justice Department.
SCOTUS strikes down key voting rights provision
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