Supreme Court to Weigh Voting Rights Act Challenge

Three high-profile cases challenging the nation’s civil rights laws and efforts to remedy age-old discrimination against African Americans and minorities in voting, employment and lending practices are on the docket for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court over the next week.

The case that has drawn the most national attention from many Black groups and civil rights advocates challenges the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No.1 vs. Holder, will be presented before the court on April 29.

The court is being asked to decide whether Congress overstepped its power by extending for another 25 years Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires some states to seek approval from the Justice Department before changing their election laws.

The law is being challenged by a utility district in Texas which is within the city of Austin and Travis County but is independent of those two. Because the entire state of Texas is covered by the Voting Rights Act, the utility district is also covered for its elections every two years of members of its board of directors.

The VRA was re-authorized in 1970, 1975, and 1982 for a 25-year extension and then 2006. Since 1970, it has passed by wide margins in both bodies of Congress and renewed repeatedly by Republican Presidents Richard Nixon (1970), Gerald Ford (1975), Ronald Reagan (1982) and George W. Bush (2006).

Just days after the most recent extension became law, following a unanimous Senate vote and a 390-33 vote in the House, the law was challenged by the utility district.

A three-judge federal court in Washington, D.C., last year upheld Congress’ 25-year extension of the Section 5 provision of the Voting Rights Act.

The Texas utility district has appealed to the high court.

Some governors, notably Govs. Sonny Perdue of Georgia and Bob Riley of Alabama, both Republicans, have also argued against keeping Section 5, saying it’s no longer needed because Blacks have made significant political progress since the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s and 70s. The governors, as many others have lately, point to the election of President Obama as a prime example that Whites will vote for Blacks. There is no longer a need for more federal oversight of state and local elections, they say.

NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton disagrees.

“The VRA was just re-authorized in 2006 with Republican support and it was signed into law by President Bush,” he said.

“The re-authorization was fully vetted because it went through 30 hearings in the U.S. House and Senate. It was found by the Congress that even though progress had been made by minorities, there were still many instances of trickery and devices used to lock minorities out of the voting process.”

In addition to Georgia and Alabama, states covered in their entirety are Alaska, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. Parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia also need permission from the Justice Department to change their election laws and procedures.

It’s not clear which way the court will rule. Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito make up the conservative wing of the court, while Associate Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg constitutes the moderate/liberal faction. Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative with moderate views on race, is considered the court’s swing vote on civil rights cases.

Jon Greenbaum, director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law’s Voting Rights Project, thinks the court will see the merit of Section 5 and let it stand.

“We believe that Section 5 is constitutional and the Supreme Court will rule in our favor,” said Greenbaum.

Greenbaum added that if the conservative faction has its way and Section 5 is watered down or nullified, the civil rights community will be ready to counter the decision.

“Any ruling by the Supreme Court that Section 5 is unconstitutional would be detrimental to the voting rights of some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens,” said Greenbaum.

“Depending on the specifics of how the court rules, Congress may be able to enact legislation that would address the constitutional problems identified by the Supreme Court.”

In another important civil rights case on the docket, the court on April 22 heard arguments in Ricci vs. DeStefano, a case involving White firefighters in New Haven, Conn. The firefighters accuse city officials of violating civil rights laws by discarding a promotion exam that the White firefighters passed, but none of the Blacks who took the test passed. In throwing out the results, the city argued that the exam had a “disparate impact” on minorities and likely violated laws on equal employment opportunity.

The test was professionally designed to meet federal guidelines that focused on the requirements of the job sought with minimal focus on cultural factors that could harm Blacks and other minorities from doing well on the test.

If the court rules that the White firefighters were discriminated against and the test results considered valid, it could spell trouble for equal employment cases and other matters regarding race and employment in the future, said Mary Frances Berry, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights during the Clinton administration.

“This is about whether we are going to see a sea change in how the judiciary looks at the need for those protections and how the popular culture and electoral politics influence their perceptions,” Berry told the media.

A lesser known, but equally important, case is Cuomo vs. the Clearing House Association, in which the court will hear arguments on April 28 on whether New York and other states have the authority to investigate discriminatory lending practices that have resulted in a disproportionate number of high interest subprime loans being issued to people of color.

“This case presents the Supreme Court with an ideal opportunity to address the root of our current economic crisis,” said John Payton, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “This will place at the forefront the impact this crisis has and continues to have on minority communities.”