AL.com: Alabama’s method of electing appellate judges does not dilute the voting power of blacks, a Montgomery federal judge ruled Wednesday in a case brought against the state by the Alabama NAACP.The group contended that Alabama’s at-large elections of appellate … Continue reading
Category Archives: Voting Rights Act
Crazy news on the 150th anniversary of the Fifteenth Amendment. States ordinarily have sovereign immunity against lawsuits without their consent. But Congress has the power to “abrogate” (or eliminate) that immunity through a statute. For decades, it has been unquestioned … Continue reading
You can find the 432 pages of opinions at this link. I strongly suspect that the Supreme Court will take this case, which reversed a lower court and a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel. A finding of intentional discrimination is especially … Continue reading
New Brennan Center report: On Election Day in 1960, four unanswerable questions awaited Clarence Gaskins, a Black voter in Georgia looking to cast his ballot for president. Upon arrival at his designated polling place, he was ushered into a room … Continue reading
New York Jewish Week reports. … Continue reading
Here’s a piece I wrote for an MLK50 event at Memphis Law: Civil Right No. 1: Dr. King’s Unfinished Voting Rights Revolution. … Continue reading
You can find the opinions in Harding v. County of Dallas at this link. Judge Ho’s partial dissent is significant in that it reads the Supreme Court’s 2018 opinion in Perez v. Abbott to add new requirements for plaintiffs seeking … Continue reading
Nikkita Oliver on the aftermath of the VRA case in Yakima, Washington. And a similar story, also today, from Pasco, 90 miles down the road. … Continue reading
Ian Millhiser critiques what he sees as a disconnect between the Chief’s year-end report on the judiciary and our democracy, and the Chief’s actions on the judiciary and our democracy. … Continue reading
Brandon Tensley offers thoughts on the occasion of Rep. John Lewis’s announcement of his fight against pancreatic cancer – the most recent courageous fight of an iconic career. (We know that animal Twitter is heartwarming, sure. But if you’re … Continue reading
AJC: Amid widespread voter distrust of government oversight of elections and questions about ballot access, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducted a unique statistical analysis to learn how precinct closures and distance to the polls impact voting.The AJC mapped Georgia’s 7 million … Continue reading
Joshua Sellers has posted this draft on SSRN (Howard Law Journal). Here is the abstract: One of the more convoluted dilemmas in election law involves distinguishing government actions motivated by race from those motivated by partisanship. In this Essay, prepared … Continue reading
NYT: The House voted on Friday to reinstate federal oversight of state election law, moving to bolster protections against racial discrimination enshrined in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights statute whose central provision was struck down by … Continue reading
Ari Berman: The House Judiciary Committee and the House Administration Committee held extensive hearings, including in states like Georgia and Texas, to document the need for a renewed Voting Rights Act. The bill passed the House on a largely party-line vote, 228 … Continue reading
Winston-Salem Journal: For the second time in four years, a version of North Carolina’s election law was in federal court, this time based on allegations that if enacted, black and Latino voters would be disenfranchised.Attorneys for the North Carolina NAACP … Continue reading
You can find the four page opinion here. This is a big deal. This is a major case brought by Ed Blum (who has brought us Shelby County, the Fisher affirmative action case, and others) and litigated by William Consovoy, … Continue reading
Turtle Talk: Here are the materials in Navajo Nation, et al. v. Reagan, et al. No. CV-18-08329-PCT-DWL (Ariz. D. Ct. 2019).The Amended Complaint sought:[D]eclaratory and injunctive relief, compelling the Defendants to (a) allow early voters who do not sign their ballot affidavit to have … Continue reading
The new lawsuit from Voto Latino and Priorities USA raises both constitutional and Voting Rights Act claims. Read the complaint. … Continue reading
The report is based upon numerous field hearings and extensively documents continued problems of voting rights in the United States, especially in jurisdictions formerly covered by section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. … Continue reading
See this report from Courthouse News Service. Here is the oral argument video. … Continue reading
AP: African Americans make up more than a quarter of Alabama’s voting age population.But only one of the state’s seven congressional districts is majority black.A federal judge on Monday will begin a trial in a lawsuit that contends Alabama should … Continue reading
Pay attention to the constitutional avoidance arguments here. … Continue reading
Al.com: A federal district judge approved a proposed settlement in the voting rights lawsuit between the Alabama NAACP, Pleasant Grove residents Eric Calhoun, and Jennifer Ford and the city of Pleasant Grove. The settlement changes the city’s election method to cumulative voting. … Continue reading
Mark Joseph Stern for Slate. … Continue reading
David Daley with the latest from the Hofeller files: IN COURT AND IN PUBLIC, many top Republicans have denied gerrymandering gives them any advantage at all. They’ve captured state legislatures and won an edge in Congress, some have suggested, due … Continue reading
The House Judiciary Committee held this hearing Tuesday with a great lineup of speakers: Mr. Justin Levitt Associate Dean for Research Professor of Law and Gerald T. McLaughlin Fellow, Loyola Law School, Los AngelesLevitt Truth in TestimonyLevitt BioMs. Franita Tolson Vice Dean … Continue reading
Worth your time from Alexa Ura. … Continue reading
Brief order: BREAKING: We secured a major #votingrights victory for Black voters in Mississippi. The 5th Circuit agrees with us—> It’s time to put in place a fair map for the MS State Legislature that will provide Black voters an … Continue reading
AL.com: A proposed settlement has been reached in the voting rights lawsuit filed against the city of Pleasant Grove alleging the rights of black candidates and voters had been violated by the city’s use of at-large voting.Court documents filed late last … Continue reading
Listen to my interview with Texas Standard on the 3-judge court decision to deny bail-in of Texas under the Voting Rights Act section 3c. … Continue reading
Travis Crum at Take Care: In a surprise decision, the three-judge district court overseeing the Texas redistricting litigation unanimously held that the State of Texas should not be “bailed-in” under Section 3(c) of the Voting Rights Act for its unconstitutional conduct during the … Continue reading
A three-judge federal district court, which earlier had found that Texas engaged in intentional racial discrimination against African-Americans and Latinos in passing its 2011 redistricting plan has refused to put Texas back under federal supervision for voting. Before the Supreme … Continue reading
Press Release. … Continue reading
Matt Ford for TNR. … Continue reading
The AP has a story about a lawsuit challenging the requirement for winning statewide office that candidates win both a majority of the popular vote and a plurality of the vote in the majority of Mississippi state house districts. … Continue reading
Ari Berman adds his voice to discussion of the potential ahead. … Continue reading
A letter in the WSJ claims that Eric Holder helped to lead the charge in Bethune-Hill, after approving Virginia districts in 2011. Consider me skeptical. The letter appears to conflate preclearance approval (which focused on two particular legal standards; every … Continue reading
San Juan County, Utah, has had a long history of trouble, over several decades, with respect to providing equal opportunities for the Navajo community, including in voting. Today, the 10th Circuit affirmed a lower court opinion redrawing the district lines … Continue reading
And here’s the other turn Rick’s been forecasting: a HuffPost piece discussing the potential to use data culled for the President’s Executive Order in the redistricting process. And a WaPo dive on the potential consequences. … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Travis Crum: In Rucho v. Common Cause, the conservatives on the Supreme Court finally prevailed on their decades-long effort to declare partisan gerrymandering a non-justiciable political question. Rather than add to the legion … Continue reading
WaPo: Rep. John Lewis and several of his Democratic colleagues broke down in tears during a closed-door meeting Tuesday after a historian described the congressman’s reaction when he saw his great-great-grandfather’s voter registration card for the first time.The House Democratic … Continue reading
Release: Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), with co-counsel, Arkie Byrd of Mays, Byrd & O’Guinn, P.A., and the law firm of Shearman & Sterling, LLP filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Black voters challenging the … Continue reading
Think Progress: A group of black voters is challenging Mississippi’s racist, Jim Crow-era laws that try to give a decided advantage to white candidates vying for statewide office, ahead of a critically important election for governor that is expected to … Continue reading
You can find the ruling at this link. … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Tulsa Law Review). Here is the abstract: This invited essay reviews Jesse H. Rhodes’s book Ballot Blocked: The Political Erosion of the Voting Rights Act. The book’s main thesis is that Republican officials … Continue reading
Court order. (Dated May 10.) There’s a rulemaking in progress for new rules in time for 2020. … Continue reading
Read it here. … Continue reading
Alexa Ura for the Texas Tribune: Back in the federal courthouse where most of an eight year-long case has played out, the fight over forcing Texas back under federal oversight of its mapmaking appeared to hinge on whether the state … Continue reading
WaPo column: Our nation faces a constitutional conflagration, and President Trump is not the only actor willing to put personal and partisan interests above the preservation of our system of self-rule.Five conservative justices on the Supreme Court signaled clearly on … Continue reading
News & Observer: North Carolina and South Carolina would face federal oversight of election law changes if a new Democratic bill to update the Voting Rights Act passes — and the U.S. House of Representatives held a field hearing in … Continue reading