Voting Rights Act

When Texas' Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott gloated on Twitter just hours after the Supreme Court hobbled the Voting Rights Act that "Eric Holder can no longer deny Voter ID in Texas," he had to know that the Obama administration would respond. Attorney General Holder delivered the counterpunch on Thursday, targeting Texas, the political poster child for voter suppression, in a new strategy to protect minorities under the remaining parts of the landmark law. 

The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Voting Rights Act last week, only two weeks after ruling that an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is unconstitutional. The Court’s decision last Tuesday and the idea underpinning it – that voter suppression of ethnic minority and poor voters is no longer an issue that warrants the same federal protections as it once did – sits at odds with their ruling on the Arizona voter ID law.

On Tuesday, President Obama expressed “disappointment” in the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which all but eviscerated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, and called upon Congress “to pass legislation to ensure every American has equal access to the polls.” Other critics of the ruling, however, were not so temperate in their characterization of what could prove to be a game changer for ongoing efforts to counter voter suppression.

The GOP’s hoped-for trump card to stave that off as long as possible is the Supreme Court. The conservatives on the court read the election tea leaves and three days after President Obama’s re-election announced that they would take up a challenge to the Act. They dropped strong hints that they may well vote to gut the Act. Justice Anthony Kennedy said he was troubled by the provisions. Chief Justice John Roberts bluntly said that things have changed in the South and that blacks supposedly vote everywhere in the South without any barriers or prohibitions. 

Since the beginning of 2011, states across the country have passed new laws restricting the right to vote. From voter ID to curbs on early voting and registration drives, these controversial measures could make it harder for millions of Americans to vote this year, including a disproportionate number of minority, young, and elderly voters. Voting rights advocates are fighting these laws in the courts, but in addition to these direct attacks on the franchise, opponents are now threatening a cornerstone of American civil rights law — the Voting Rights Act (VRA).