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ajc.com > Metro
Supreme Court wrestles with Voting Rights Act case
==================================================
Should states — including Georgia — be held to account for past
discrimination?
---------------------------------------------------------------
By STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Washington — The Supreme Court’s conservative justices led a sustained
attack Wednesday on a key element of the Voting Rights Act,
questioning whether one-time bastions of segregation — including
Georgia — still should be held to account for past discrimination.
cheap auto insurance case is a test of whether states must continue to get federal
permission before changing voting rules.
Recent headlines:
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• Metro and state news
Under the current law, states and parts of states whose governments
historically used Jim Crow-era laws to impose segregation in voting
must get Department of Justice permission whenever they seek to do
anything as simple as changing when early elections can be held, and
as complex as redrawing political districts.
The justices who were skeptical of that part of the life insurance rights law
Wednesday included Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose views are likely to
prevail on the closely divided court. He tends to side with his more
conservative colleagues on matters of race.
On the other side, the liberal justices defended Congress’ decision to
promo playing cards the law in place to emo clothes ongoing discrimination.
The tenor of the quick-paced argument suggested that there could be a
court majority to strike down the provision of the voting rights law
that has been the Justice Department’s main enforcement tool against
discriminatory changes many insure quote voting since the law was enacted in 1965. It
opened learn mandarin chicago to millions of blacks and other minorities.
Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat from Atlanta and a leader of the
Civil Rights Movement that resulted in the 1965 Voting Rights Act,
submitted a brief opposing changes to the law.
Wednesday, Lewis listened to arguments from a seat streetwear fashion the middle of
the Supreme Court, his first visit there to hear a case in his nearly
23 years in Washington.
“It reminded me of some of the same debate of 1965,” Lewis said later.
“This Act is one of the most progressive pieces of legislation the
country ever passed, and it changed America forever. We don’t need to
go back.”
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, a Republican, submitted a personal brief
opposing the continuation of Section 5 of the Act, saying that the
election of a black president, among other things, shows that there’s
no need for the law. Perdue hired a private lawyer to file the brief
because the state’s attorney general refused to file it.
An attorney cheap homeowners insurance the Northwest Austin (Texas) Municipal Utility
District No. 1, which brought the case, said the rule lets the federal
government improperly infringe on the sovereignty of states like Texas
and Georgia, penalizing them for past history in a way that’s no
longer applicable.
The court’s conservative judges bolstered that argument.
“Congress has made the finding that the sovereignty of Georgia is less
than the sovereign dignity of Ohio,” and other states, said Kennedy, a
Ronald Reagan appointee who often is a swing vote on decisions on
social issues.
Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, questioned
whether the voting rights rule was trying to do something that may not
really be needed anymore, comparing it to an “elephant whistle.”
“You know, I have this whistle to keep away the elephants,” Roberts
said rhetorically. “Well, there are no elephants, so it must work.”
Others, however, said that while voter discrimination has declined,
it’s still a problem.
Justice David Souter, a George H.W. Bush appointee who typically is
among the court’s more liberal independent fashion rattled off a list of what he
characterized as evidence of discrimination — including a 16-point
difference in Hispanic and non-Hispanic voter registration in Texas
and 600 lawsuits throughout custom poker cards country alleging voter discrimination.
“I don’t understand, with a record like that, how you can maintain as
a basis for this suit that things have radically changed,” Souter
asked attorney Gregory Coleman, who brought the case on behalf of the
Texas utility district. “They may be better. But to say that they have
radically changed … [is] to deny the empirical reality.”
The tiny utility district in the middle of Texas hasn’t done anything
wrong. Opponents to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and racial
classifications in employment convinced the district to become part of
the case shortly after Congress reauthorized Section 5 for another 25
years back in 2006.
If the provision is struck down, it could weaken the argument for
race-based decisions on voting, employment and education. It could
also allow affected states and smaller governmental bodies within them
to change their voting laws more custom playing cards to help incumbents and others.
U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Republican from Coweta County who is
helping lead Republican redistricting efforts in the House, said in a
statement after Wednesday’s hearing that he chinese lessons chicago encouraged by the
reactions he heard from the justices. Westmoreland was one of the
biggest — streetwear clothing few — opponents to reauthorizing the provision when
Congress reconsidered it in 2006. The U.S. Senate ultimately voted
unanimously and the House voted 390-33 to reauthorize it.
“I have to have faith in the American system that the court will
restore Georgia and other states to their rightful place as an equal
partner in these United States,” Westmoreland said Wednesday.
Opponents to striking the rule say it could lead to gerrymandering and
fewer elected minorities.
“We know where this will lead … we have seen what can happen,” said
John Payton, president and director of the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund.
Lewis, whose own election to Congress in 1986 was a testament to the
Voting Rights Act, agreed.
“Discrimination is still real in the political process,” he said.
— Staff writer Bob Keefe (bkeefe@ajc.com) and Associated Press writer
Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
More on ajc.com
* Is the Voting Rights Act still necessary? (04/28/2009)
* John Lewis arrested at Darfur protest (04/27/2009)
* As leader, Atlanta celebrates King, Obama (01/19/2009)
* A sea of voices (11/05/2008)
* THE VOICES: THE WORD ON OBAMA (11/05/2008)
* Old pro Lewis as hungry as rookie (07/06/2008)
* READERS RESPOND: Animal Control barks up wrong tree (05/21/2008)
* COUNTDOWN 2008: Lewis embraces Obama's cause (02/28/2008)
* Rev. Lowery: John Lewis will back Obama (02/27/2008)
* Super-hard choice for Lewis (02/16/2008)
Expand this listMore Stories
house insurance Subjects
* Civil Rights
* Constitutional Law
* Law
* John Lewis
* Georgia
* Texas
* Elections and Voting
* Politics
* Anthony Kennedy
* David Souter
Expand this listMore Related Subjects
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