It is long past time to declare victory over Jim Crow and move on to a healthier stage of race relations, particularly with respect to how the American people elect their government representatives.
This term the Supreme Court has a chance to do that in a case examining the continuing constitutionality of an important but now outmoded part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Shelby County, Alabama is challenging Section 5 of the VRA, which requires that certain states and counties – as determined by a decades-old formula – receive approval (“preclearance”) from the Department of Justice or a federal district court in Washington before implementing any change to their election regulations, no matter how modest.
The county sued to resolve the “serious constitutional questions” noted by the Supreme Court in the last significant VRA challenge in 2009 – a case infelicitously named Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder, or “NAMUDNO” – but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled against it, over a heated dissent by Judge Stephen Williams. This lawsuit hinges on the validity of extraordinary federal power in a nation where massive racial disenfranchisement is, thankfully, consigned to history books.
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