U.S. Supreme Court strikes down pertinent part of Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act cannot be enforced unless Congress comes up with an up-to-date formula for deciding which states and localities still need federal monitoring.
The justices said in a 5-4 vote that the law, most recently renewed by Congress in 2006, relies on 40-year-old data that does not reflect racial progress and changes in U.S. society.
The challenge to the Voting Rights Act arose when Shelby County, Alabama, sued the United States Department of Justice, charging that portions of the law are unconstitutional. At the forefront of the case was Section 5 of the Act, which requires that jurisdictions that had once imposed literacy tests and had less than 50 percent voter turnout in the 1964 or 1968 elections be subject to special scrutiny by the Department of Justice or a panel of judges from U.S. District Court for D.C. when changing their election and voting laws.