Voting Rights Act

Next month the Supreme Court will consider a controversy over congressional redistricting in Texas that will highlight the importance of a crucial part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act: Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination to "pre-clear" changes in their election practices with the Justice Department or a federal court. In 2009 the court declined to rule on the constitutionality of Section 5, but it could return to the issue. If they are in any doubt about the continued need for it, they should read a recent speech by Atty.

A federal appeals court in Washington has upheld a key part of the Voting Rights Act, one that requires states and localities with a history of discrimination against minorities to "pre-clear" changes in their election procedures with the Department of Justice or a federal court. The reasoning behind the 2-1 ruling is persuasive; Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.and other members of the Supreme Court should exercise judicial restraint by refusing to reconsider it. In an earlier, 2009 decision, the chief justice recognized that Congress has the power to enforce the 15th Amendment's guarantee of a right to vote.

The Supreme Court limited the reach of the Voting Rights Act on Monday, ruling that there was no duty to draw voting districts that would elect black candidates in areas where blacks were less than a majority. In a 5-4 decision, the court said officials need not consider race when drawing districts for state legislatures, county boards, city councils and school districts, so long as blacks did not make up a voting majority in a particular area. Justice Anthony M.

WASHINGTON — Nicholas Katzenbach, the Kennedy administration lawyer who faced down Gov. George Wallace to enroll the first black students at the University of Alabama and who helped write the landmark civil rights and voting rights acts of the 1960s, has died. He was 90. Katzenbach died Tuesday night of natural causes at his home in Princeton, N.J., according to his daughter, Anne Katzenbach of New York City. Katzenbach was one of the "best and brightest" who were drawn to Washington when John F. Kennedy became president in 1961.

The election of Barack Obama as president has been hailed as a crowning achievement of America's civil rights movement, the triumph of a black candidate in a nation with a history of slavery and segregation. But in a twist, Obama's success has emerged as a central argument from conservatives who say his victory proves that some of the nation's most protective civil rights laws can be erased from the books.

The fate of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act looked to be in doubt Wednesday as Supreme Court justices questioned whether the Southern states still need special supervision to prevent them from discriminating against black voters. "Are Southerners more likely to discriminate than Northerners?" asked a skeptical Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Is the "sovereignty of Georgia" entitled to less respect than "the sovereign dignity of Ohio? . . .

Since the 1960s, state and local officials in the South have been required by law to seek advance approval from the Justice Department in Washington before making changes in their election rules, a legacy of the era when blacks were denied the right to vote. But in an unusual twist, new Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, is using the pre-clearance requirement in the Voting Rights Act to stall enforcement of a voter-approved initiative that bars partisan gerrymandering. Longtime champions of voting rights are crying foul.

Although it was unintentional, Supervisor Pete Schabarum made a convincing case for the Voting Rights Act when he testified Tuesday in the federal government's redistricting lawsuit against Los Angeles County. Schabarum doesn't like the Voting Rights Act, enacted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress in 1965 to assure that minorities are represented in government. He made that clear on Tuesday.

In one of those seemingly technical cases that in fact have tremendous social significance, a tiny utility district in Austin, Texas, last week persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its argument for invalidating a critical piece of the 4-decades-old Voting Rights Act.

Led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., famous for his endorsement of judicial "modesty," conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court seem poised to take the immodest step of striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a swing vote on civil rights issues, should think twice before joining this wrecking crew. The act, first passed in 1965, outlaws discriminatory practices.

After weeks of accusations about secret meetings, backroom deals and real estate grabs, Los Angeles' push to draw new council district lines has returned to a well-known theme from previous remapping efforts: race. With a vote set for Friday on the new outlines of 15 council districts, two black representatives of South Los Angeles, upset over their proposed new political territories, are pressing a legal challenge on the grounds that race was improperly the predominant factor in redrawing boundaries.

The Supreme Court gave an early win to Texas Republicans in the fight over redrawing election districts and the balance of power in Congress, ruling that the district lines should mostly follow those set by GOP lawmakers and not those by judges who drew new boundaries to favor Latinos. The 9-0 decision set aside a new map of congressional districts drawn by a special federal court in San Antonio that gave Latinos and Democrats a good chance to win three or possibly four new seats in the House of Representatives.

Next month the Supreme Court will consider a controversy over congressional redistricting in Texas that will highlight the importance of a crucial part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act: Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voting discrimination to "pre-clear" changes in their election practices with the Justice Department or a federal court. In 2009 the court declined to rule on the constitutionality of Section 5, but it could return to the issue. If they are in any doubt about the continued need for it, they should read a recent speech by Atty.

The Obama administration's civil rights office is stepping up its fight with the Southern states over voting rights, announcing it will block a new South Carolina law that would require voters to show a government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot. The Justice Department invoked the Voting Rights Act on Friday and said the new photo-identification rule could deny the right to vote for tens of thousands of blacks and other minorities. "According to the state's statistics, there are 81,938 minority citizens who are already registered to vote and who lack DMV-issued identification," Thomas E. Perez, the chief of the department's civil rights division, said in a letter to South Carolina officials.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. denounced recent state laws that restrict voting and, citing the long struggle to ensure voting rights for all, hinted that the Justice Department would challenge some of them in court. In a speech Tuesday at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, Holder quoted Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a veteran of the civil rights movement, as saying that voting rights were being attacked in "a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students [and]

After hours of emotional testimony from hundreds of speakers, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a political redistricting map late Tuesday largely preserving the status quo, protecting incumbents and rejecting demands that the board create a second Latino-majority district. Tuesday's 4-to-1 vote sets the stage for a costly legal battle, pitting the county against Latino activists who are expected to accuse the supervisors of protecting white incumbents at the expense of the voting rights of Latinos.

Civil rights leaders said Thursday that President Bush's signature to extend the 1965 law against racist voting practices would be just a footnote in history if the government failed to enforce it. At a bill signing ceremony at the White House to extend provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Bush pledged to stand behind the law that opened polls to millions of black Americans. "Today, we renew a bill that helped bring a community on the margins into the life of American democracy," Bush said.

On Tuesday, as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors makes a final decision on how to redraw the lines of the five supervisorial districts, it will have the opportunity to make history — or repeat it. If the supervisors honor the Voting Rights Act and redraw boundary lines in a way that avoids diluting the voting strength of Latinos and gives them a meaningful opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, they will be the first board...

Every 10 years, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is charged with redrawing the electoral district lines to reflect the population shifts in the county detected in the latest census. In theory, that's a straightforward task driven by demographic facts and figures. In reality, however, the process is complicated by a variety of factors, including the self-interest of incumbents who are eager to keep their seats, as well as the racial politics of a highly diverse and rapidly changing county, and the difficulty of drawing a map that will allow five elected officials to govern nearly 10 million people responsively and effectively.