AP: Civil rights advocates are objecting to a proposal to close about 75 percent of polling locations in a predominantly black south Georgia county. The Randolph County elections board is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss a proposal that would … Continue reading
Category Archives: Voting Rights Act
HuffPo: Nearly half of Florida’s counties are violating the Voting Rights Act by not offering Spanish-language ballots and other election materials to citizens, a suit filed in federal court Thursday alleges. The lead plaintiff in the suit is Marta Rivera, … Continue reading
Interesting story. … Continue reading
Michael Wines for the NYT: In the national battle over voting rights, the fighting is done in court, state by state, over rules that can seem arcane but have the potential to sway the outcome of elections. The Justice Department’s … Continue reading
KPCC’s Airtalk explores. … Continue reading
WSJ: Santa Monica, Calif., with a “well-being index” to gauge the happiness of its residents and a fleet of city buses powered by natural gas, often lives up to its reputation as a wealthy, liberal enclave on California’s coast But … Continue reading
Common Cause: Today a federal judge struck down a 2015 bill passed by the Michigan legislature and signed by Governor Snyder to ban straight-ticket voting. Common Cause joined the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Democratic Party of Michigan, and Michigan … Continue reading
Order from the 9th Circuit: Filed order and amended memorandum (SUSAN P. GRABER, MILAN D. SMITH, JR. and ALVIN K. HELLERSTEIN). Movants-Appellants petition for panel rehearing filed in case No. 18-55506 is GRANTED in part. The memorandum disposition filed June … Continue reading
Release via email: The Texas Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has issued an Advisory Memorandum examining potential barriers to voting in Texas that may have a discriminatory impact on voters based on race, color, sex, disability … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, William & Mary L. Rev.). Here is the abstract: The Voting Rights Act (VRA) has been an important mechanism for increasing participation by racial minorities in the electoral system. In recent years, … Continue reading
You can read Josh’s opening at this link. … Continue reading
Watch the hearing of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. … Continue reading
The Atlantic: A new poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic has uncovered evidence of deep structural barriers to the ballot for black and Latino voters, specifically in the 2016 election. More than that, the survey finds that the deep … Continue reading
NYT op-ed: “The threat of voter disenfranchisement will get worse if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to the court. His opinion in the South Carolina [voter ID preclearance] case and his record in civil rights matters suggests that he will join … Continue reading
LAT has this op-ed from two members of the city council on a threatened challenge to the city’s at-large election system, arguing that “carving the city into districts will not meaningfully enhance local Latino political representation.” … Continue reading
NPR: “Often, we talk about the big cases that involve gerrymandering, voter identification and redistricting, but a lot of legal action around voting actually happens in small cities and towns. And a growing number of those cases are being brought … Continue reading
The Atlantic: “the Court has established that not only are the legacies of Jim Crow no longer a valid justification for proactive restrictions on states, but the Court doesn’t necessarily have a role in advancing the spirit of the franchise.” … Continue reading
Available on SSRN. From the abstract: Litigants seeking to lift burdens on the right to vote and judges adjudicating these claims have an unremarkable problem—what is the benchmark for measuring the nature of these burdens? Legal theories abound for claims … Continue reading
My thoughts on the Take Care Blog. … Continue reading
Judge Kelly’s opinion in Missouri St. Conf. NAACP v. Ferguson-Florissant Sch. Dist. affirms the district court’s decision that the school district’s at-large elections violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The Eighth Circuit concludes that African American voters can make a Section 2 … Continue reading
Just before the holiday, Rick posted a Texas redistricting update: the trial court issued a briefing order asking what’s left of the case after SCOTUS remand. Rick thought “there’s not much left to do.” But while most of the fireworks … Continue reading
Here’s an interview I did on NPR’s Morning Edition. … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement from the Supreme Court last week, was certainly the “swing justice” in key cases on major issues from abortion to gay rights. But when … Continue reading
You can find it here. You can also read my Slate piece on the decision, “Suppression of Minority Voting Rights Is About to Get Way Worse; The Supreme Court has put its thumb on the scales in favor of discriminatory states. … Continue reading
Mark Joseph Stern for Slate: What may be most remarkable about Monday’s decision in Abbott v. Perez, however, is Justice Neil Gorsuch’s effort to position himself as a fierce opponent of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court already gutted a … Continue reading
Great opening quoting Justin Levitt and Rick Pildes in this well-done NPR report by Nina Totenberg on today’s Texas redistricting decision. … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: On Monday, five years to the day that the Supreme Court decided Shelby County v. Holder, a case in which the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act with assurances that other … Continue reading
Almost exactly five years ago I wrote a NY Times oped about the Supreme Court’s unfortunate decision striking down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County: The Chief Justice’s Long Game. This part held up pretty well: Today’s … Continue reading
Thwarted before, N.C. GOP wants photo ID mandate: North Carolina legislative Republicans on Thursday advanced their goal of permanently requiring voters to show photo identification — a proposal previously thwarted this decade by veto and federal judges who declared a … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
I had thought that the partisan gerrymandering cases were going to end with a whimper rather than a bang, and that’s exactly what happened. With thoughts that Justice Thomas or Alito likely have the opinion in the Texas redistricting cases … Continue reading
NYT: The Democratic National Committee is undertaking an expansive, multimillion dollar strategic plan to motivate voters who typically sit out midterm elections, with a particular focus on engaging nonwhite communities through new investments in local organizing and a six-figure advertising … Continue reading
The Supreme Court issued four opinions today, and signalled a rare Friday opinion release tomorrow with 10 cases remaining. The Court is likely to finish its term and release of the remaining opinions some time next week. Only three Justices … Continue reading
Kira Lerner for Think Progress: But with more voters casting ballots from their homes, Arizona is offering fewer opportunities for people to cast ballots in person. That’s a problem for Native Americans, who say they enjoy the communal aspects of voting on … Continue reading
With no fanfare, the mandate issued from the 5th Circuit in the Texas voter ID case yesterday, ending the appeal. As I wrote back in April, the panel issued a “fundamentally disingenuous opinion” by Judge Edith Jones, which was really … Continue reading
Press release via email: A lawsuit filed in federal court alleges that the at-large voting system of the Town of Islip violates the Voting Rights Act by systematically preventing members of Islip’s Latino community from electing candidates of their choice … Continue reading
The Court’s order denying cert. in Igartua v. Trump is here. Background at Harvard Law Review. … Continue reading
The district court had tossed the case on standing, but the Ninth Circuit has revived the case. It has given LULAC permission to intervene in the case. Buckle up! … Continue reading
Today we sued Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana for violating Sec. 2 of the Voting Rights Act in how they drew congressional district lines to disadvantage minority voters. Here are copies of the lawsuits: https://t.co/U8t3KjZfJK, https://t.co/xbHhOBEV9R, https://t.co/0MF0SGG0FF — Marc E. Elias … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a controversial Ohio voter purge law which allows the state to begin the process of removing voters from the rolls based upon their failure to vote in … Continue reading
This looks good: When: Thursday, July 12, 2018 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Where: Room to be announced Steptoe & Johnson LLP 1330 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, D.C. 20036 And via webinar Registration: This event is free and open to the … Continue reading
NBC Bay Area: A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge announced Tuesday that he believes Santa Clara’s at-large voting system violates the California Voting Rights Act and has impaired the Asian-American population from getting elected. Santa Clara registered voters Ladonna … Continue reading
Cronkite News reports (h/t Doug Chapin). … Continue reading
You can find the 83-page opinion at this link. Near the end of the opinion, the court rejects treating race as party proxy argument: Based on the totality of the circumstances, Plaintiffs have not shown that the legislature enacted H.B. … Continue reading
Details: Judicial Gerrymandering? The Voting Rights Act, Judicial Elections, and Redistricting May 2, 2018 01:00 PM – 02:00 PM Event Location: ACS Webinar , Details: In recent weeks, the North Carolina General Assembly has proposed redrawing the map … Continue reading
Howard has it. And see my earlier post on the case, which begins: In what I consider to be a fundamentally disingenuous analysis by 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones, a divided 5th Circuit panel has not only held that Texas’s … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: The part of the manual addressing the Justice Department’s civil rights work was revised in March. In a section discussing enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, the new version removes previous references to redistricting and racial gerrymandering. The previous version stated: “The Voting Section … Continue reading
Manny Fernandez reports for the NY Times. … Continue reading
Earlier today, Rick noted the 5th Circuit’s opinion on Texas’s voter ID law. I agree with much of his critique of the court’s resolution of the section 3(c) preclearance issue. In my post on the Texas redistricting cases earlier this … Continue reading
You can find a majority opinion by Judge Jones, concurring opinion by Judge Higginbotham, and dissenting opinion by Judge Graves in Veasey v. Abbott at this link. In what I consider to be a fundamentally disingenuous analysis by 5th Circuit … Continue reading