Today, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the core of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and at the same time challenged Congress to craft replacement legislation that protects minority voters wherever discrimination persists rather than target individual states including Arizona.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion in the case of Shelby County, Alabama, Petitioner V. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General, Et Al. : “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 employed extraordinary measures to address an extraordinary problem. Section 5 of the Act required States to obtain federal permission before enacting any law related to voting—a drastic departure from basic principles of federalism. And §4 of the Act applied that requirement only to some States—an equally dramatic departure from the principle that all States enjoy equal sovereignty. This was strong medicine, but Congress determined it was needed to address entrenched racial discrimination in voting, “an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.”
In a 5-4 ruling with the court’s conservatives in the majority, the justices ruled that Congress had used outdated facts in continuing to force nine states, mainly in the South, to get federal approval for voting rule changes affecting blacks and other minorities. For example: Census Bureau data indicate that African-American voter turnout has come to exceed white voter turnout in five of the six States originally covered, with a gap in the sixth State of less than one half of one percent.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote : “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”
“Let me be very clear: we will not hesitate to take swift enforcement action – using every legal tool that remains available to us – against any jurisdiction that seeks to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling by hindering eligible citizens’ full and free exercise of the franchise,” said Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement released today.
President Obama expressed disappointment: “Today’s decision invalidating one of (the law’s) core provisions upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent.”
Chief Justice wrote, “voting discrimination still exists: no one doubts that.” Only part of the Voting Rights Act, but not all of it, was struck down. The constitutionally protected voting rights of all Americans remain fully intact.