“I think by the time the debate is concluded, there will be a very bipartisan consensus that if there is an amendment needed to Section 5 to keep it viable, the votes will be overwhelming.” —Representative Jim Sensenbrenner,… Continue reading

Bloomberg Businessweek: “At a sensitive and historic moment in racial relations in the U.S., late-night comedian Bill Maher has offered some of the most provocative commentary on the future of civil rights. I will explain.”

Texas Redistricting analyzes.

HuffPo: “If the Obama administration needs a plan to deal with the likely death of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, it may be able to dust off its blueprint from 2009….Unbeknownst to the public, President Barack… Continue reading

The New Yorker reports.

NYT:  “Emerging from the bloody protests in Selma, Ala., the Voting Rights Act was initially heralded as a declaration that the federal government would no longer tolerate the open racism of the segregated South. But this narrow mandate to… Continue reading

The Nation: On Sunday, March 3, Representative John Lewis locked arms with Luci Baines Johnson and Vice President Joe Biden and marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge here. Forty-eight years earlier, on “Bloody Sunday,” Lewis was badly beaten by Alabama… Continue reading

Amy Howe: “That leaves, as it so often does, the vote of Justice Kennedy.  And although at least one of his questions has been interpreted as signaling support for the law, for the most part his comments and questions… Continue reading

Carvin, Hebert, Thernstrom and Lindenbaum discuss Shelby County at GW Law, moderated by Spencer Overton.  Unfortunately closed to the press.

Here.

Nate Silver: “As much as it pleases me to see statistical data introduced in the Supreme Court, the act of citing statistical factoids is not the same thing as drawing sound inferences from them. If I were the lawyer… Continue reading

Her Opinionator column concludes: The Roberts court stands on the brink of making an error of historic proportions. A needless and reckless aggrandizement of power in one case to satisfy the current majority’s agenda will erode the court’s authority over… Continue reading