Category Archives: Voting Rights Act
“The Roberts Court Has Made the Looming Coronavirus Election Crisis So Much Worse”
David Gans:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder left a gaping hole in our Constitution’s promise of democracy and opened the door to rampant voter suppression. Now COVID-19 is making things exponentially worse.
Travis Crum: “The Curious Disappearance of Shelby County”
The following is a guest post from Travis Crum:
Earlier this week, the Supreme
Court issued a decision that could have significant consequences for the
constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights legislation
applied against the… Continue reading
“National, Texas Democrats file lawsuit to keep straight-ticket voting for 2020 election”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
After some Texans waited more than six hours to cast their ballot on Super Tuesday, national and Texas Democrats filed a lawsuit Thursday to block a state law that would eliminate straight-ticket voting come November.In a … Continue reading
“Trump’s DOJ Has Not Filed A Single New Voting Rights Act Case”
Tierney Sneed for TPM:
The apparent refusal of President Trump’s Justice Department to engage in any meaningful, public enforcement of the Voting Rights Act has taken Republicans’ general hostility to the law to a whole new level.
The DOJ has… Continue reading
“‘Bloody Sunday’ Commemoration Draws Democratic Candidates to Selma”
NYT:
residential candidates and prominent social justice activists descended on Alabama on Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of the brutal attack on civil rights marchers here in 1965, one of the most violent episodes in the struggle for black participation… Continue reading
“Judge: Alabama’s method of electing appellate judges not discriminatory”
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… Continue reading
Wow: 11th Circuit Rejects State of Alabama’s Argument That Congress Did Not Intend to Allow Private Litigants to Be Able to Sue for Violation of Section 2 of the VRA, But Judge Branch Remarkably Dissents
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
Breaking: Divided En Banc 9th Circuit Holds Arizona Violated Voting Rights Act by Not Partially Counting Out-of-Precinct Provisional Ballots and Engaged in Intentional Racial Discrimination in Banning Collection of Absentee Ballots
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
“The New Voter Suppression”
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
“NAACP Suit Says Rigged Voting System Favors Orthodox Jews in East Ramapo”
New York Jewish Week reports.
For MLK Day
Here’s a piece I wrote for an MLK50 event at Memphis Law: Civil Right No. 1: Dr. King’s Unfinished Voting Rights Revolution.
Divided Fifth Circuit Rejects Argument of Dallas, Texas White Voters of Voting Rights Violation and Racial Gerrymandering; Judge Ho Partly Dissents, Seeking to Read Voting Rights Act More Strictly
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… Continue reading
“Voting rights, representation and the future of democracy in the nation’s fruit basket”
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.