Voting Rights Act To Go Before Supreme Court
The Supreme Court announced Friday that it would decide whether an historic portion of the Voting Rights Act protecting against racial discrimination is constitutional.
(Photo: Getty Images.) Section 5 of the act, passed in 1965, requires states and localities with a history of discrimination to get federal approval before changing any voting laws.
Nine states and parts of seven others are required to obtain the approval.
Robert Barnes of The Washington Post reports:
The Section 5 requirements were passed during the darkest days of the civil rights struggle, paving the way for expanded voting rights for African Americans and greatly increasing the number of minority officeholders.
The court will hear an appeal of a case from Shelby County, Alabama, the Associated Press reports, that argues that state and local governments subject to the law have made significant progress and no longer require oversight.
But in 2009, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “sidestepped” the question as “a difficult constitutional issue, according to the AP.
Last spring, Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that there was no reason to reassess the law.
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