Key Portion of Voting Rights Act Upheld

A federal appeals court recently upheld a crucial section of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Last Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuited voted 2 to 1 to turn down a challenge to Section 5, which requires states and localities with a history of voter discrimination to get Washington's approval for any changes in their voting laws and procedures.

This enforcement provision was most recently reauthorized in 2006, but Republican attorneys general from several of the covered states — Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — have since unleashed constitutional challenges to the law. Detractors argue the mandatory supervision is too burdensome, but Section 5 has proved to be an important tool for protecting minority voters.

"Congress drew reasonable conclusions from the extensive evidence it gathered and acted pursuant to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which entrust Congress with ensuring that the right to vote — surely among the most important guarantees of political liberty in the Constitution — is not abridged on account of race," wrote US Circuit Judge David S. Tatel. "In this context, we owe much deference to the considered judgment of the people's elected representatives."