Release: A federal court today denied a motion to dismiss a challenge to Alabama’s discriminatory voter ID law brought by plaintiffs represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. The ruling comes in the case of Greater Birmingham … Continue reading
Category Archives: Voting Rights Act
Release via email: This week, a federal district court judge denied the State of Texas’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the method of electing Texas’s Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals violates the Voting Rights Act. The … Continue reading
From today’s order (via Josh Gerstein): Having heard re-argument, this Court intends to issue its new opinion on whether SB 14 was passed with a discriminatory intent in violation of the Voting Rights Act at its earliest convenience and in … Continue reading
Super interesting. Second time it is being rescheduled. I explained what was supposed to happen tomorrow here. The governor and AG of North Carolina want to withdraw the petition and the Legislature does not. Something is going on behind the … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: Filed by Committee Chairwoman Joan Huffman, Senate Bill 5 would add options for Texas voters who say they cannot “reasonably” obtain one of seven forms of ID currently required at the polls. It would also create harsh criminal penalties for … Continue reading
Motion. … Continue reading
Re-upping my CNN Opinion piece with the Gorsuch hearings beginning: Unfortunately, this approach obscures the fact that keeping the steady course with a conservative replacement for Scalia will be bad enough across a range of topics important to many Americans, … Continue reading
The case is back on the Justices’ conference list. (More on the dispute and the delay.) The first thing the Justices will do is decide the motion to dismiss the cert petition (put in by North Carolina’s governor and AG, … Continue reading
Opposition. … Continue reading
Last night I linked to the extensive ruling and findings of fact and conclusions of law in a very long-running dispute about whether Texas’s congressional districting were a violation of the Voting Rights Act and/or the Constitution. I have now … Continue reading
The long awaited lengthy opinion on the congressional plan, with a dissent by Judge Smith, is here. The numerous findings of fact and conclusions of law are here. (The court has not released findings yet on the state House challenge). … Continue reading
Brief: All of the petitioners in this case have moved to withdraw the pending petition. Thus, under normal operation of this Court’s rules, the petition should be dismissed. See S. Ct. R. 46.2(a). Seeking to derail this ministerial process, the … Continue reading
WABE: Thousands of metro Atlanta voters would find themselves in different state House districts under a Republican plan that Democrats allege reduces the influence of minority voters. Similar moves in other states have been challenged in federal courts, according to … Continue reading
Marc Morial has written this oped for Nola.com. … Continue reading
TPM: After Alabama’s Secretary of State John Merrill promoted the state’s voter ID law at a church service held Sunday to commemorate the anniversary of a civil rights milestone in Selma, patrons walked out. The service at Brown Chapel African … Continue reading
The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy (joined by the Court’s liberals and Chief Justice Roberts) has affirmed in part and reversed in part the Virginia racial gerrymandering case, Bethune-Hill v. Va. State Board of Elections. Justice Alito concurred … Continue reading
Read at Slate. … Continue reading
Ariane de Vogue for CNN. … Continue reading
Manny Fernandez and Eric Licthblau in the NYT: The Justice Department remains a party in the case. But it is pulling back at a crucial phase. If a judge finds the state acted with discriminatory intent, as the Justice Department … Continue reading
Sari Horwitz for WaPo: The practical effect of the Justice Department’s decision is that civil rights groups will continue, without the backing of the federal government, to contest the purpose of the Texas law. “DOJ’s reversal in position defies rationality … Continue reading
Well, we’ve been expecting this. Here’s a motion to be filed at the Supreme Court objecting to NC AG’s motion to dismiss the cert. petition in the controversial NC voting case. And here’s a motion to add the Legislature and … Continue reading
Before tomorrow’s hearing, the United States Department of Justice will ask a federal district court to voluntarily dismiss its claim that in enacting its strict voter identification law, Texas acted with a racially discriminatory purpose. There is nothing in the … Continue reading
Hope to see Austin folks at this ACS event (with cookies!). I’ll be giving a faculty workshop that day too, presenting Race or Party, Party as Race, or Party All the Time: Three Uneasy Approaches to Conjoined Polarization in Redistricting and … Continue reading
A federal district court, following a remand from the Fifth Circuit, is considering whether Texas acted with racially discriminatory intent when it passed its controversial voter identification law. The district court had already made a finding that Texas had such … Continue reading
Release: Groups and individuals suing Texas over its strict photo ID law filed a brief in U.S. District Court today in opposition to a joint request by the state and the United States Department of Justice, who asked to delay … Continue reading
See this filing. So it looks like the Court is very likely to dismiss the case, unless the NC Legislature gets involved and can convince the Court that it can assert the interests of the state of North Carolina. So … Continue reading
AP: The U.S. Justice Department joined Texas’ attorney general Wednesday in asking a federal court to delay a hearing on the state’s voter ID law, the latest signal that the federal government might drop its opposition to the law now … Continue reading
Josh Douglas CNN oped. … Continue reading
North Carolina has filed its reply brief in the North Carolina voting case, and the Supreme Court is set to review it at its March 3 conference. (If the Court does grant review, it typically takes at least two conferences … Continue reading
Release: A federal voting rights lawsuit challenging the election scheme in a North Carolina county was filed today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The complaint was brought on behalf of voters in … Continue reading
Important EJ Dionne WaPo column. … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN, for the forthcoming symposium on Redistricting after 2020 at William and Mary. I think this piece brings together a lot of my thinking (and others’ thinking) on the “race or party” question in … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: The future of voting rights in the medium to long term is not rosy. President Donald Trump is making false claims that millions of voters fraudulently cast ballots in the 2016 … Continue reading
HuffPo: A Texas city found to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment last month might still be able to use the offending electoral system this coming May. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court … Continue reading
Daniel Biggers and Michael Hanmer have written this article for American Politics Research. Here is the abstract: Recently, many states have reversed the decades-long trend of facilitating ballot access by enacting a wave of laws requesting or requiring identification from … Continue reading
Written questions from Sen. Leahy and Sen. Sessions’ answer in connection with his nomination as AG: 21. You claim to be a champion of the Voting Rights Act because you voted for VRA’s reauthorization in 2006. But aside from this … Continue reading
The Supreme Court declined to review the Texas voter id case today, but Chief Justice Roberts strongly signaled that the Court could well grant review when the case is fully complete in the lower court (and when, it is likely, … Continue reading
DOJ has filed this request for a one month extension of a hearing in the trial court hearing the latest round in the Texas voter id case. The motion, which is opposed by the private plaintiffs in the case but … Continue reading
In a 457 page opinion (including appendices) by Trump #SCOTUS shortlister William Pryor, a three-judge federal district court in the Alabama racial gerrymandering case has struck down 12 challenged Alabama districts as unconstitutional. Judge Myron Thompson, in a separate 120-page … Continue reading
Although the Court granted cert. in two cases today, no word yet on the Texas redistricting case (now up at three conferences) or the North Carolina racial gerrymandering case. There was a chance the Court could have acted on this … Continue reading
I talked to Texas Standard. … Continue reading
Stay tuned (docket). … Continue reading
From this NY Times story on tensions between the president elect and African-Americans, and a meeting with Martin Luther King III: Mr. King said the session, which included a discussion about voting rights, had been “constructive,” and described Mr. Trump … Continue reading
I reported back on January 6 that a federal district court found that the City of Pasadena, TX intentionally discriminated against Latino voters in changing its city council districting plan. (For background, read Jim Rutenberg’s excellent NYT magazine piece, and … Continue reading
Must-read Manny Fernandez in the NYT on the voting rights case in Pasadena, Texas: Within days of the Supreme Court striking down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in June 2013, the mayor of this working-class industrial city set … Continue reading
Here is today’s Court’s order. What does it mean that there was no order on Texas, despite the fact that the cases was considered and then relisted from last week? It could mean that as early as Tuesday (when the … Continue reading
In (what I consider to be) a surprising development, the Supreme Court has issued this order calling off special elections in North Carolina which had been ordered by a three-judge court following a finding of racial gerymandering. It is possible … Continue reading
Following up on this post, Plaintiffs’ response is here. North Carolina might file a reply, and then I expect the Chief Justice will refer the matter to the full court for decision. Interestingly, the petition for appeal itself is on the … Continue reading