According to today’s order list, the Supreme Court denied cert. in two felon disenfranchisement cases: Locke v. Farrakhan, No. 03-1597 (from the Ninth Circuit) and Muntaqim v. Coombe, No. 04-175 (from the Second Circuit). There is now a split in the circuits unresolved by the Supreme Court over whether plaintiffs may attack state felon disenfranchisement laws as having a disparate racial impact in violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. There are still to be proceedings in both of these cases, along with an Eleventh Circuit case that is pending, so it is possible the Court will revisit the issue at a later date even in one of these cases. The Second Circuit case might be taken en banc.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Ninth Circuit case was a suggestion by Judge Kozinski in his dissent from that court’s denial of en banc rehearing in which he suggested that allowing the section 2 claim to go forward could undermine the constitutionality of section 2 of the Act, because if the Act is viewed as reaching state felon disenfranchisement laws, it might exceed the powers of Congress under the 14th or 15th Amendments. I expect that this issue will resurface in these cases.
More from Lyle Dennison here. UPDATE: The AP story is here.