Supreme Court Ruling on Voting Rights Opens Door to Wave of Minority Voter Suppression

Court Rejects Congress' Determination of Where the Voting Rights Act Should Apply, Leaving Voters Unprotected.

Statement by Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which defended the Voting Rights Act before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court's decision today to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act is an act of extraordinary judicial overreach. The Supreme Court ruling takes the most powerful tool our nation has to defend minority voting rights out of commission. By second-guessing Congress' judgment about which places should be covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Court has left millions of minority voters without the mechanism that has allowed them to stop voting discrimination before it occurs. This is like letting you keep your car, but taking away the keys. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. Congress must step in.

In 2006, Congress amassed a 15,000 page record supporting its judgment that minority voters in certain places needed specific protections to be able to participate equally in the political process. The Supreme Court today held that Congress must now return to the drawing board to reconsider which jurisdictions in the country should be covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court declined the request by Shelby County, Alabama to strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires some states and localities to illustrate that proposed changes to the voting process don't suppress minority voters before those changes can take effect. The Court did not rule on the constitutionality of Section 5 itself, which has been upheld in four previous challenges.

Today's ruling conflicts with our deeply held value in America that every individual has the sacred right to vote. Our country is stronger when more—not fewer—people participate in the political process.

When the Supreme Court held oral argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, LDF defended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, as it did the last time Section 5's constitutionality was challenged before the Court.  LDF's clients in Shelby include local ministers from Shelby County, as well as the Councilman whose district was illegally changed, radically reducing the proportion of African-American voters in his district. LDF has been involved in nearly all of the precedent-setting litigation relating to the voting rights of people of color. LDF litigated to protect against disruptions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, shortly after the notorious "Bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965.

LDF also is involved in five other cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court: cases concerning college diversity, the National Voter Registration Act, and marriage equality.

Source.... http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/supreme-court-ruling-on-voting-rights-opens-door-to-wave-of-minority-voter-suppression-212963091.html

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