Voting Rights Act Decision Draws Senator’s Ire By Keith Perine, CQ Staff<http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/print_template.html#>
A badly fractured Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Monday that the North Carolina General Assembly was wrong to draw a state legislative voting district in a way that violates state law. The state’s constitution bars dividing counties into different legislative districts. The legislature said it had to draw a state district in such a way in order not to run afoul of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But the plurality opinion in *Bartlett v. Strickland*, by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy<http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/wmspage.cfm?docID=profile-000000001258>, rejected that argument. One of the affected jurisdictions, Pender County, challenged the legality of the district. As drawn by the state legislature, African-Americans comprise 39 percent of the district’s voters. If drawn in such a way as to leave Pender County intact, the district would have an African-American voting age population of 35 percent. Kennedy rejected the legislature’s Voting Rights Act defense under the first part of a three-part test the high court established for Section 2 liability in a 1986 case, *Thornburg v. Gingles,* that the minority voter group “is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district.” “Section 2 does not guarantee minority voters an electoral advantage,” Kennedy wrote. “Minority groups in crossover districts cannot form a voting majority without crossover voters. In those districts minority voters have the same opportunity to elect their candidate as any other political group with the same relative voting strength.” Only the court’s two newest members, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.<http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/wmspage.cfm?docID=profile-000000024682>joined Kennedy’s opinion. In a separate opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Clarence Thomas<http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/wmspage.cfm?docID=profile-000000001225>, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia<http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/wmspage.cfm?docID=profile-000000001262>, argued that the whole case was a dangerous overreading of the Voting Rights Act. “The text of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not authorize any vote dilution claim, regardless of the size of the minority population in a given district,” Thomas wrote. The court’s liberal bloc of justices banded together in a dissent by David H. Souter<http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/wmspage.cfm?docID=profile-000000001426>. “The object of the Voting Rights Act will now be promoting racial blocs, and the role of race in districting decisions as a proxy for political identification will be heightened by any measure,” Souter wrote. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy<http://www.cqpolitics.com/frame-templates/wmspage.cfm?docID=profile-000000000510>, D-Vt., blasted what he called a “cramped reading” of the Voting Rights Act by Kennedy. “As Congress reaffirmed in its recent nearly unanimous reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, this landmark law is meant to continue the historic expansion of inclusion and openness in our democracy,” Leahy said. “The Supreme Court’s decision today is a step in the wrong direction.” On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Ms. Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > Court refuses to expand minority voting rights > > March 9, 2009 · Print This Article > > The Supreme Court has ruled that electoral districts must have a majority > of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of > the Voting Rights Act. > > The decision could make it harder for southern Democrats to draw friendly > boundaries after the 2010 Census. > > The justices on Monday declined to expand protections of the landmark civil > rights law to take in electoral districts where the minority population is > less than 50 percent of the total, but strong enough to effectively > determine the outcome of elections. > > In 2007, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a state legislative > district in which blacks made up only about 39 percent of the voting age > population. The court said the Voting Rights Act applies only to districts > with a numerical majority of minority voters. > > AP > -- > "I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out > of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my > worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." ~Marilyn Monroe > -- "I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." ~Marilyn Monroe --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Black Focus Inc." group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Black-Focus-Inc?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
