After the Voting Rights Act

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas A. Powe
Keyword(s):  
Attorney General ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
Shelby County ◽  
The One ◽  
Voter Fraud ◽  
Voter Id ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses the legal battles over the issue on voting rights in Texas. The Voting Rights Act, with its preclearance requirements for the South, was adopted in 1965 and reauthorized in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006. A few days after the 2006 reauthorization, the municipal utility district (MUD), created in Austin, Texas, in the 1980s, sued the U.S. attorney general, claiming that it should be allowed the advantage of the “bailout” (from preclearance) provisions of the Act. Edward Blum was the man behind the lawsuit. The chapter examines the MUD case and the one that followed it, Shelby County v. Holder. It also considers the efforts of Republicans to prevent voter fraud in the state through voter identification, resulting in SB 14, or voter ID bill, in the Texas Senate.

scholarly journals FEDERALISM, SUBSIDIARITY, AND VOTING RIGHTS: CRITIQUING THE SHELBY COUNTY DECISION THROUGH JOHANNES ALTHUSIUS AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-171
Author(s):  
Jonathan Rothchild
Keyword(s):  
Voting Rights ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Department Of Justice ◽  
Felon Disenfranchisement ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
Shelby County ◽  
Theological Critique ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Basic Features

AbstractThis article develops a legal and theological critique of the Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder decision that dismantled portions of the Voting Rights Act. Defending the Voting Rights Act in light of four basic features of voting rights—access, participation, empowerment, and expression of conscience—I refute the Shelby decision in terms of its oversimplified notions of discrimination and its overly narrow construal of federalism as state sovereignty and equality. I draw upon Catholic social teaching's subsidiarity and Johannes Althusius's federalism to defend the individual and communal dimensions of voting rights. I examine post-Shelby developments, including voter-identification laws, and I argue that such laws are unfounded and have deleterious effects. I conclude by offering modest recommendations for a post-Shelby world, including continued roles for Congress and the Department of Justice, the use of intermediary organizations, and the rescinding of felon disenfranchisement laws.

Voter Purges After Shelby

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 687-692
Author(s):  
Catalina Feder ◽  
Michael G. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Full Control ◽  
Shelby County ◽  
First Time ◽  
Election Laws ◽  
The U.S

In Shelby County v. Holder (570 U.S. 529 (2013)), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the “coverage formula” in Section 4b of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that determined which jurisdictions had to presubmit changes in their election policies for federal approval. This ruling allowed covered counties full control over their election laws for the first time in 40 years. We engage the question of whether counties that had previously been “covered” purged voters at a higher rate than noncovered counties after the coverage formula was struck down. We find increases in purge rate of between 1.5 and 4.5 points in formerly covered jurisdictions post- Shelby, compared with counties that had not been subject to preclearance. Most of the increase came immediately, as the effect in 2014 is substantively and significantly higher than that in 2016. These findings suggest that while counties may have aggressively purged voters in 2014—the first election after the coverage formula’s demise—they may have tempered this behavior thereafter.

The Voting Rights Act's Pre-Clearance Provisions: The Experience of Native Americans in South Dakota

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Reith Schroedel ◽  
Joey Torres ◽  
Andrea Walters ◽  
Joseph Dietrich
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
South Dakota ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
The State ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shelby County

During the 1965 debates over the Voting Rights Act, there are only two brief mentions of Native Americans. During the Act's 1975 renewal, Native Americans were mentioned only with respect to their inclusion under the minority language provisions. At no point did the applicability of Section 5's pre-clearance provisions to political jurisdictions with histories of discrimination against Native Americans generate discussion. They also were ignored in the Supreme Court's 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, where Section 4(b) that established the criteria for establishing Section 5 covered jurisdictions was found to be unconstitutional. In this paper, we examine struggles over Section 5 pre-clearance in South Dakota, as well as the challenges of legal attempts to establish “covered jurisdictions” using the more stringent standard required in Section 2. We focus on South Dakota because it is a state with a long, troubled history of discrimination towards Native peoples. It also is the state with the highest number of voting rights cases involving Native Americans. Although a state that has been labeled “the Mississippi of the North” is an extreme case, we argue that it is precisely those settings that make pre-clearance so critical.

The Inexact Science of Congressional Redistricting

1982 ◽  
Vol 15 (03) ◽  
pp. 431-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles S. Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
Justice Department ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Congressional Representation ◽  
The U.S

Incumbent politicians are understandably nervous when electoral rules are altered. In the case of the U.S. House of Representatives, members are well aware that a change in decade is accompanied by the near certainty that their own district lines will be redrawn. These incumbents know that changes resulting from the reallocation of congressional seats among states and the shift of population within states could have a shattering effect on their careers: their districts could be eliminated; they could be thrown into a district with another House incumbent; their district lines could be radically redrawn, destroying their traditional bases of support.Incumbents' unease is transformed into serious worry by one additional fact:de jurecontrol of redistricting is out of their hands. State legislatures and governors, the Justice Department (for those states falling under the Voting Rights Act) and ultimately the courts determine the fate of incumbents.Of course, the ostensible purpose of congressional redistricting in accordance with the decennial census is to ensure that congressional representation reflects the changes in the geographical distribution of the nation's population and thus to ensure that the members of the House from each state represent approximately the same number of citizens. Putting that principle into practice creates opportunities for the parties to increase their strength in the House but it also causes tremendous uncertainty among incumbents.Looking at political science research on the effects of redistricting on the fortunes of incumbents, one might wonder why they worry. In 1972 I reported findings of my study on incumbents who lost their elections after redistricting.

The Suppressive Impacts of Voter Identification Requirements

2020 ◽  
pp. 073112142096662
Author(s):  
Jennifer Darrah-Okike ◽  
Nathalie Rita ◽  
John R. Logan
Keyword(s):  
Voting Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Suppressive Effect ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Identification Documents ◽  
Voter Suppression ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Voter Id

Political observers argue that the United States is in a contemporary era of voter suppression. We study one mechanism that may limit voter participation, the requirement to show identification documents at the polls—voter ID policy. Voting rights advocates have raised concerns about disparate impacts of voter restrictions on racial minorities. However, past studies have reported conflicting results. Analyzing nationally representative data from the Current Population Survey across nine election years, we show that voter ID policies, and especially “strict photo ID policies,” have a suppressive effect on participation. Voter ID requirements can reduce the probability of self-reported voting by as much as four percentage points, enough to swing a national election. While we found suppressive effects of ID policies for all racial groups, we show that Latino citizens face disproportionately negative suppressive effects of strict ID policies.

Interracial Differences in the Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Systematic Variation ◽  
Voting Rights Act ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The U.S

Despite a series of high-profile confrontations between blacks and the U.S. legal system, ranging from protests in Ferguson, Missouri to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, we know surprisingly little about interracial variation in support for the legal system. This chapter uses data from the Freedom and Tolerance Surveys (FATS) to describe how support for the U.S. Supreme Court differs by race and ethnicity. We provide evidence that whites, blacks, and Hispanics exhibit striking and systematic variation in their support for the U.S. Supreme Court and that these differences persist even after accounting for the most plausible alternative explanations for institutional support. We discuss how racialized institutional support for the U.S. Supreme Court may hinder its institutional efficacy.

The Empirical Effects of Voter-ID Laws: Present or Absent?

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (01) ◽  
pp. 121-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason D. Mycoff ◽  
Michael W. Wagner ◽  
David C. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Court Ruling ◽  
Expiration Date ◽  
Supreme Court Ruling ◽  
Primary Election ◽  
Voter Identification ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Voter Id ◽  
The U.S

The effect of voter-identification (voter-ID) laws on turnout is a hot-button issue in contemporary American politics. In April of 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Indiana's voter-ID law, the nation's most rigorous, which requires voters to arrive at the polls with a state-issued photo ID containing an expiration date (Crawford v. Marion County2008). In a famous incident highlighting how Hoosiers were dealing with their state's voter-ID law, representative Julia Carson (D-IN) was initially blocked from voting during Indiana's 2006 primary election for failing to comply with Indiana's voter-identification standard. Carson identified herself with her congressional ID card; since that card did not include an expiration date and therefore did not meet Indiana's voter-identification law, she was turned away at the polls before later being allowed to vote (Goldstein 2006). The rising wave of public, political, and legal debate crested two years later in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling and during the Indiana primaries, with reports of a dozen nuns being denied ballots at the polls due to their lack of appropriate identification (Urbina 2008).

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