S.Ct Rejects Challenge to Constitutionality of Voting Rights Act

Today the Supreme Court ducked the issue of the constitutionality of the 25 year extension of the Voting Rights Act by the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006...

Today the Supreme Court ducked the issue of the constitutionality of the 25 year extension of the Voting Rights Act by the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006, 120 Stat. 577. Instead, reaching a statutory construction question to resolve the instant legal dispute, the Court broadened the scope of the statute's bailout provision, based on the Court's utterly unsupported assertion that a strict application of the definitions in the Act was "unlikely" to comport with congressional intent. Justice Roberts wrote the Court opinion on behalf of 8 Justices, with only Justice Thomas dissenting. Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, No. 08-322, 557 U.S. __ (2009). Debo Adegbile, NAACP Legal Defense Fund Director of Litigation, argued the case in support of the Act.

A small utility district in Texas sought release from the preclearance provision, § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The utility district sought a "bailout" from the Act. The Act explicitly provides that only a State or political subdivision may obtain a bailout. 42 U.S.C. §1973b(a)(1)(A). A political subdivision is defined as a county or parish, or in an area where voting is not conducted under the supervision of a county or parish, a subdivision which conducts registration for voting. The district court held that bailout was unavailable because the utility district did not register its own voters. The utility district argued that if bailout was unavailable, then the preclearance provision is unconstitutional. The district court rejected the constitutional challenge and held that the Act was a congruent and proportional response to the continuing problem of racial discrimination in voting.

Justice Roberts began by observing that when the Voting Rights Act was first passed, "unconstitutional discrimination was rampant," but presently "blacks now register and vote at higher rates than whites." The Court stated that the Act imposes "substantial federalism costs," and these "federalism costs have caused Members of this Court to express serious misgivings about the constitutionality of" the Act. The Court went on:

Things have changed in the South. Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels. ...These improvements are no doubt due in significant part to the Voting Rights Act itself, and stand as a monument to its success. Past success alone, however, is not adequate justification to retain the preclearance requirements.... The evil that §5 is meant to address may no longer be concentrated in the jurisdictions singled out for preclearance. The statute's coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old, and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions. (citation omitted)

The Court then noted that the parties disagreed about the appropriate legal standard for determining the constitutionality of the Act. The utility district argued for the congruent and proportional standard, while the government argued that the legislation only needed to be a rational means to solve a constitutional problem.

Next the Court turned to the role of Congress, stating:

"The Congress is a coequal branch of government whose Members take the same oath we do to uphold the Constitution of the United States." The Fifteenth Amendment empowers "Congress," not the Court, to determine in the first instance what legislation is needed to enforce it. Congress amassed a sizable record in support of its decision to extend the preclearance requirements, a record the District Court determined "document[ed] contemporary racial discrimination in covered states." (citations omitted)

The Court asserted that it would not "shrink from its duty" to protect the constitution from "legislative encroachments," but in this instance, it was not necessary to reach the constitutional question.

The Court turned to the issue of whether the utility district was entitled to seek relief under the bailout provision. The Court admitted that the utility district did not meet the definition of a political subdivision eligible for bailout. So, as the Court acknowledged, the utility district did not meet the clear language of the statute for qualifying to seek bailout.

However, the Court stated: "But here specific precedent, the structure of the Voting Rights Act, and underlying constitutional concerns compel a broader reading of the bailout provision." The Court did not reiterate the constitutional concerns specified earlier, but rather reached a clearly political result. The Court noted that counties can seek a bailout (of course, since they meet the definition in the Act), and then concluded that the Act did not treat "every governmental unit as the State itself," unable to bailout unless the entire State could bail out.

Giving no credence to the Government's interpretation of the Act (the court does not even consider deference), the Court blamed the Government for interpreting the statute in a manner than rendered the bailout provision a "nullity." The Court cited the Government's brief for the fact that, since 1982, only 17 jurisdictions out of 12,000 covered subdivisions had successfully bailed out.

Then comes the one sentence guts of the decision: "It is unlikely that Congress intended the provision to have such limited effect." The Court cites only its recent decision in United States v. Hayes, 129 S.Ct. 1079 (2009), regarding the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which reached a similar conclusion in the context of a totally different law. Thus, this decision simply is without any basis in the law.

Justice Thomas's dissent is the opinion many of us feared would garner 5 votes. He would have held that § 5 exceeds Congress' power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment. He stated: "The extensive pattern of discrimination that led the Court to previously uphold §5 as enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment no longer exists." He concluded that the evidence relied upon by Congress "is plainly insufficient to sustain such an extraordinary remedy."