SCOTUS Hearing An Important Case on Voting Rights Act and States' Rights

From a Wall Street Journal editorial today.....

Voting Rights Milestone

A Supreme debate about racial progress.

"In Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, a Texas Utility District is challenging the constitutionality of Section Five of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The section requires the Justice Department to approve any new law or regulation on voting in nine mostly Southern states, as well as selected townships and counties elsewhere. The districts themselves bear the burden of proving that their changes won't increase discrimination.

Originally written as a five-year emergency provision to protect minority voting rights, the law was renewed in 1970, 1975, 1982 and again in 2006 for 25 more years. While Section Two of the act is permanent and is not being challenged, Section Five is outdated but still too politically dangerous to touch. In 2006, President Bush signed the extension after it passed 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate.

But politically sacrosanct doesn't mean legally justified, and at oral arguments several Justices expressed their doubts. Specifically, by making the Justice Department the arbiter for changes in some states and not others, the preclearance requirement is a discriminatory burden. "The difference between Latino registration and white registration in Texas was 18.6%," Justice Samuel Alito pointed out, "which is not good, but it's substantially lower than the rate in California, which is not covered, 37%; Colorado 28%, New Mexico 24%, the nationwide average 30%." Justice Anthony Kennedy added that "Congress has made a finding that the sovereignty of Georgia is less than the sovereign dignity of Ohio," and that it costs the covered states and cities $1 billion every decade to comply."