Supreme Court rules on Voting Rights Act
June 22, 2009 at 11:19 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsThe U.S. Supreme Court today exempted a small Texas governing authority from the Voting Rights Act, a law that requires 16 states — including Georgia — to get the federal green light before changing the way elections are conducted. Gov. Sonny Perdue, pointing to the civil rights advances made both nationally and in the state, has argued the part of the law that restricts Georgia is no longer necessary. The court did not address that issue today.
From the New York Times:
The court, with only one justice in dissent, avoided the major constitutional questions raised in the case over the federal government’s most powerful tool to prevent discriminatory voting changes since the mid-1960s.
…
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the larger issue of whether dramatic civil rights gains means the advance approval requirement is no longer necessary ”is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today.”
The court’s avoidance of the larger issue explains the consensus among justices in the case rendered Monday, where they otherwise likely would have split along conservative-liberal lines.
Justice Clarence Thomas, alone among this colleagues, said he would have resolved the case and held that the provision, known as Section 5, is unconstitutional.
”The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains,” Thomas said.
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