Is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 still relevant?
Feb. 22, 2013
By Jeremy Quattlebaum, Student Voices staff writer
1965 was a watershed year for the civil rights movement. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 became law, requiring many Southern states to remove legal barriers that kept minorities from voting.
Gone were poll taxes and literacy tests, and African Americans began turning out to vote in numbers never seen before. They still faced challenges when it came to voting in the Jim Crow South, but the Voting Rights Act was a crucial step in the civil rights movement.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires certain states, counties and districts with a history of racial discrimination to submit plans for redistricting or changes in voting laws and election procedures to the Justice Department. They must prove that the changes will not adversely affect minorities.
In the decades since, Section 5 has come under fire as unnecessary federal encroachment. Officials in Shelby County, Ala., decided to fight Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, declaring that the provision is unconstitutional. The county sued the Justice Department.
The Supreme Court will hear opening arguments on Feb. 27, 2013, in the case of Shelby County v. Holder.
Shelby County officials contend that Section 4b – a formula that determines which states are subjected to Section 5 – exceeds the authority of the 14th and 15th Amendments and that the provisions are in violation of the 10th Amendment and Article IV of the Constitution.
They say that Section 5 is outdated and that the districts in question have put their discriminatory history behind them. “The circumstances that warranted it in 1965 don’t exist anymore,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, which supports Shelby County’s arguments.
The State of Arizona filed an amicus curiae (which is Latin for a “friend of the court”) brief supporting Shelby County, stating that “Section 5 served a noble purpose, and America is a freer and better place for it. But Congress’s refusal to amend the statute… means that this Court is the last and only branch of federal government that can defend the State’s coequal sovereignty.”
Section 5 has its supporters.
“Some people want to put out of their minds something which is real, which is [that] discrimination is still going on,” Armand Derfner, who defended the Section 5 provision in Voting Rights Act before the Supreme Court in 1968, said in a Clarion-Ledger interview. “Yes, in many ways we have made progress… But we haven’t finished the job.” In Derfner’s case, Allen v. State Board of Elections, opponents of Section 5 contended that it applied only to voter registration. But the Supreme Court said it covered all election procedures. Since then, the Justice Department has reviewed thousands of requests for election-related changes.
Derfner said that Section 5 was, and continues to be, necessary to prevent voter discrimination from being established. “That was the old pattern; whenever Congress blocked some method of discriminating, the states came up with something new,” said Derfner, who plans to attend the Feb. 27 oral arguments at the Supreme Court. “Section 5 was designed to stay one step ahead of the states.”
Others argue that Section 5 is necessary for the growing populations of Latinos in states like Texas and Arizona. The Justice Department rejected Texas’ redistricting plans in 2003 because the government reasoned that the new districts carved up Latino areas, making it nearly impossible for them to form a significant voting bloc in the new districts.
Update, June 25, 2013: In a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court rejects as unconstitutional a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The provision, Section 4, contains a formula for deciding which states must have federal approval before making changes in laws that affect voting, such as redrawing electoral districts. Section 5, which establishes the pre-clearance requirement, was not struck down since without Section 4 it is irrelevant. The Voting Rights Act was most recently updated by Congress in 1975. The Court said that Congress used outdated data to identify states subject to federal oversight. Proponents of the law said it protected minority voting rights.
What do you think?
How should the Supreme Court rule in Shelby County v. Holder? Does Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act still matter, or is it a legacy of a bygone era? Is it unconstitutional? Does racial disenfranchisement still exist in America? Join the discussion and let us know what you think!
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