High court to look at Voting Rights Act provision (Austin MUD #1)

[sonias]

AAS 1/9/09
High court to look at Voting Rights Act provision
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a constitutional challenge to a key component of the Voting Rights Act, the main federal law for ensuring access to the polls by minorities.

The justices said they will review a lower court ruling upholding a provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires all or parts of 16 states with a history of racial discrimination, most in the South, to get approval before implementing any changes in the way elections are held.

(snip)
Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One, a government board formed to provide local services to about 3,500 people, sued following the 2006 extension. The board asked the court to exempt it from the law and said Congress had no constitutional right to pass a bill that tried to remedy past discrimination.

A federal court in Washington ruled in May that the prior approval provision is constitutional.

The three-judge panel said that the utility board didn't qualify as a "political subdivision" and could not be exempted from the law. It also ruled that racial discrimination in voting persists and that Congress acted appropriately when it extended the law.

For as much money as this MUD is spending on legal fees it could just get with the program and comply with the law. I have a suspicion that this MUD's legal fees are not being paid entirely by this MUD. There is something much larger behind this 3,500 member MUD. I think it is a bit disturbing to think what SCOTUS will do.
:scared:


Sonia

[sonias]

1. High court takes Austin case

AAS 1/09/09
High court takes Austin case
(snip)
What you've got is this little MUD saying basically that racial discrimination in the polling place is history, but the evidence is completely to the contrary," said Lisa Graybill, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. "Individual and systemic discrimination continues at the polls."

The ACLU of Texas represents Nathaniel Lesane, an African American resident of Northwest Austin MUD No. 1 whose name is on a court brief supporting Section 5.

(snip)
The Austin MUD's appeal could be a defining moment for the court under Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts opposed expansion of the Voting Rights Act as a Reagan administration lawyer and wrote skeptically about racial politics in a 2006 dissent on a Texas redistricting case, saying: "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race."

"Clearly he is skeptical of a broad reading of the Voting Rights Act," Hasen said.

:kick:

Sonia

[Lithos]

2. My money is the AEI

Edward Blum of the AEI, who in a Chronicle Article is said to have recently moved to Austin, is a major player in the article.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid%3A559094

On the other side, the MUD was in fact recruited to the lawsuit by its attorney Gregory Coleman, formerly the Texas solicitor general (and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas), along with Edward Blum of the American Enterprise Insti­tute, who runs its Project on Fair Repre­sentation, a legal defense fund seeking to end what it calls "racial preferences" in voting, education, contracting, and employment.

[sonias]

3. Good catch

The New York Times article says Coleman is the guy looking for the fight.

NYTimes 1/10/09
Justices Will Hear Challenge to Voting Rights Act

(snip)
Coleman, a politically active lawyer who once clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, testified to Congress in opposition to extending the Voting Rights Act in 2006. He recruited Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 for a test case after Congress extended the law for another 25 years.

(snip)
"It has the potential to be the most important election-law case this court has heard," said Richard L. Hasen, an elections expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, adding that it raises the possibility that "the remedy that was once constitutional is now unconstitutional."

The case comes to a court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., that has become increasingly skeptical of race-based remedies.

Sonia

[sonias]

4. SCOTUS blog take

SCOTUS blog 1/09/09
Court to rule on voting rights law, 3 other cases
(snip)
The Court’s review of the voting rights case will pose a major test of Congress’ authority to require continuing close federal oversight of state and local election procedures, in the face of claims that times have changed so greatly since the law at issue was first adopted in 1965 that it is no longer justified under the Constitution. Some conservative advocacy groups are passionately opposed to the Voting Rights Act extension, claiming it is a profound intrusion on state sovereignty.

The case actually involves two issues, and depending upon how the Court rules on one of them, it may not reach the ultimate question of constitutionality. The local Texas government unit argues that it should be allowed to "bail out" from coverage by so-called Section 5, under a special exemption procedure the law includes. If the Court were to rule that the utility district is entitled to such an exemption, the constitutional question might have to await some future case.

Actually that makes me feel better. The court could give this MUD an exemption which I think Roberts might do and still leave the constitutionality of VRA intact.


Sonia

[sonias]

5. NY Times Editorial on the VRA

NY Times - January 25, 2009

Editorial
Uphold the Voting Rights Act

Some people claim that Barack Obama’s election has ushered in a "postracial" America, but the truth is that race, and racial discrimination, are still very much with us. The Supreme Court should keep this reality in mind when it considers a challenge to an important part of the Voting Rights Act that it recently agreed to hear. The act is constitutional — and clearly still needed.

Section 5, often called the heart of the Voting Rights Act, requires some states and smaller jurisdictions to "preclear" new voting rules with the Justice Department or a federal court. When they do, they have to show that the proposed change does not have the purpose or effect of discriminating against minority voters.

When Congress enacted Section 5 in 1965, officials in the South were creating all kinds of rules to stop blacks from voting or being elected to office. Discrimination against minority voters may not be as blatant as it was then, but it still exists. District lines are drawn to prevent minorities from winning; polling places are located in places hard for minority voters to get to; voter ID requirements are imposed with the purpose of suppressing the minority vote.

(snip)
In last fall’s election, despite his strong national margin of victory — and hefty campaign chest — Mr. Obama got only about one in five white votes in the Southern states wholly or partly covered by Section 5. And there is every reason to believe that minority voters will continue to face obstacles at the polls.

Not that Roberts, Alito, Scalia or Thomas read or care what the NY Times says.

1 in 5 Southern White vote for Obama in VRA states. Wow that is really pathetic.

Sonia