Comments on: Why Section 5 survives

By: tmc

tmc — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:39:08 +0000

gerrymandering in all forms should be abolished. voting should be simply by county and when needed, town lines.

By: kramartini

kramartini — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:32:01 +0000

Section 5 will technically remain untouched, because Section 4(b) will be struck down, leaving no covered jurisdictions.

Since Shelby County will no longer be a covered jurisdiction, it will lack standing to challenge the core of Section 5, which will be effectively dormant barring further legislation.

By: RogerClegg

RogerClegg — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:06:08 +0000

The 2006 amendments certainly made Section 5 worse, but even without them Section 5 is unconsitutional in 2013. For example, the original version includes the same “effects” test, which is beyond Congress’s authority to enact, and which enables the principal (and pernicious) purpose for which the act is currently used, namely the creation of racially gerrymandered and segregated voting districts (which Abigail Thernstrom has long — and brilliantly and correctly — decried).

Here’s why Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is bad policy, outdated, unconstitutional, and ought to be struck down by the Supreme Court: http://www.pacificlegal.org/opeds/Overtu rn-unconstitutional-Voting-Rights-Act