Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> TalkLeft

Legal Commentary

: TalkLeft

Supreme Court Decides NAMUDNO: Voting Rights Act Narrowed, But Survives

By Jeralyn

In a 8 to 1 decision (pdf), the Supreme Court allows the Voting Rights Act to survive....barely.

The justices, voting 8-1, chose not to decide the constitutionality of a provision requiring that officials in eight states and parts of eight others get Justice Department clearance before making changes. The court instead said a small Texas utility district and other governmental bodies could seek an exemption. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a partial dissent.

Tony Mauro has more, as does Scotus Blog, which says:

Perhaps one of the main ways to read the Court’s ruling, then, is that it it a warning to Congress that it needs to reconsider Section 5, and shore it up, if it can, with a new formula for coverage, and provide some assurance that it will no longer single out some states to bear Section 5’s obligations in ways that the Court suggested were now unequal.

[More...]

Law Prof Rick Hasen at his Election Law Blog has this analysis. He begins:

Despite Chief Justice Roberts' longstanding skepticism of the Voting Rights Act and his blistering set of questions to supporters of section 5's constitutionality during oral argument, the Chief has managed to put together a coalition of 8 of 9 Justices to put the question off for another day. To do so, the Chief had to ignore the seeming plain language of the act, as well as earlier Supreme Court caselaw on point to reach an interpretation of the Act virtually no lawyer thought was plausible.

And once again he has been able to get the Court to reach an outcome he desires through statutory interpretation and the doctrine of constitutional avoidance. Still, this is a much greater victory for supporters of the Voting Rights Act (and especially for Justice Souter) than for Roberts:

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 22, 2009 (boomark / email).