Voting Rights Act Threatened--The Old White Curmudgeon Supremacy Still Lives Rest Assured.

Judges Uphold Voting Rights Act
Challenge to Law Called Key Test Case
By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post
May 31, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053002913.html?wpisrc=newsletter

A federal court yesterday rejected the first legal
challenge to a key provision of the Voting Rights Act,
in a case that legal scholars view as an important test
of one of the country's seminal pieces of civil rights
legislation.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a municipal
utility board in Texas, which argued that part of the
law is costly and unconstitutional. Congress
reauthorized the law in 2006.

The utility board is likely to appeal directly to the
Supreme Court, offering opponents a chance to test the
Voting Rights Act before a court that has grown more
conservative in recent years.

"This has been about getting it to the Supreme Court,"
said Richard Hasen, a professor at Loyola University Law
School in Los Angeles who specializes in election law.
"Conservative opponents of the law have put a lot of
eggs in this basket. This was set up as a test case."

Under the Voting Rights Act, any challenge to the law
must be heard first by a three-judge panel of federal
judges in Washington. The decision then can be appealed
to the Supreme Court, bypassing appellate courts.

In a unanimous, 121-page opinion, two U.S. District
Court judges and an appellate court judge found that the
utility board is not entitled to an exemption from rigid
requirements of the Voting Rights Act. It also ruled
that Congress had acted appropriately in reauthorizing
the law because of the "continuing problem of racial
discrimination in voting."

Civil rights advocates hailed the decision, saying it
reaffirmed the importance of a law widely credited with
bringing down barriers to voting in states with a legacy
of racial discrimination.

"This is one of the most important civil rights cases
decided this year," John Payton, president of the NAACP
Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in a statement.

Greg Coleman, the attorney who represented the Northwest
Austin Municipal Utility District No. One, said he is
"looking very carefully at the possibility" of appealing
the decision.

"The idea that people in Austin, Texas, are somehow more
prejudiced than people in most of the country is just a
false idea," he said.

Under the Voting Rights Act, certain parts of the
country -- mostly in the South -- are subject to rigid
requirements in how they handle voting. The utility
board sought to move its polling places from a garage to
a school, Coleman said. To do that, it had to seek
permission from the Justice Department.

Coleman argued that obtaining such approval is costly
and time-consuming, and discourages local governments
from making changes that might benefit the community.

He also argued in court papers that portions of the law
are unconstitutional because times have changed, and
that Congress did not "specifically identify evidence of
continued discrimination" in states or municipalities
still covered by the act.

But the judges sided with the Justice Department, which
argued in court papers that the reauthorization of the
act "was a valid exercise" of congressional authority
under the Constitution.