Shelby County Vs. Holder Case Analysis

There is clearly a discriminatory purpose behind the need of the Section 4(b) removal especially from a county that has prior racial discrimination in its past. Justice Ginsburg also mentions an important note that “Between 1982 and 2006, DOJ objections blocked over 700 voting changes based on a determination that the changes were discriminatory” . This only proves the need for Section 4(b) even stronger and that without the preclearance and the coverage formula, more discriminatory behavior would have been able to pass through the cracks of the political system, further disenfranchising minorities and pushing back the long hard legislation that has been fought so hard

Throughout America’s history the franchise has been withheld from different groups. This has been possible due to weakly written laws that do not provide adequate protections. In 1965 PL 89-110 was passed, this law, commonly known as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, finally provided real protections for minorities living in southern states. In recent years the language of the law was modified within the Supreme Court to take away the law’s primary power. In the following mock Congressional testimony we will go back to 1848, 13 years before the American Civil War, and provide evidence of why a law like PL 89-110 is necessary and commendable.

Nearly 100 years after the 15th amendment was ratified, vast disparities and blatant discrimination in voting process and practice were still pervasive, particularly in certain southern states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) was enacted by congress to address this enduring inequity. Section 5 of the VRA requires that states meeting criteria set out in section 4(b) of the act, must obtain federal “preclearance” before enacting any laws that affect voting. Section 4(b) provides the conditions for the preclearance requirement as state or jurisdictions where less than 50% of minorities were registered to vote in 1964.

Board of County Commissioners of Brevard V. Snyder set a precedent since the Court concluded the comprehensive plan, provides for future land use through gradual and ordered growth, and it is not a literal guide. Thus, Local governments have the discretion to decide that certain land uses should be denied, even if they comply with comprehensive plan guidelines.

The Fifth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth amendment were implemented to protect American citizens. The declaration says “all men are created equal” (Jacobus, 412), these amendments are in place to protect our rights and keep us safe. The Fifth Amendment states that no person shall “….Be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law….” (Jacobus, 412) However even though we have these laws here to protect us, discrimination plagued our country and did not grant rights to certain groups of minorities because of skin color, race, or religion. Throughout our history there were many instances of this unfairness, for example “Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Company.” (Jacobus, 412) This case was a huge breakthrough in the fight against segregation, saying that any form of discrimination is a “badge of slavery,” (Jacobus, 412) and therefore violates the Thirteenth Amendment. “The Supreme Court stated that in enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Congress is empowered under the Thirteenth

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting discrimination. With the condition to receive preclearance stated in section 5 of the Act from the Department of Justice before making any changes affecting the voting process, also came four other prohibitions. The prohibition of literacy test or other similar test or devices as a prerequisite to voter registration is one prevention. The requirement of jurisdictions with significant language minority populations to provide non-English ballots and oral voting instructions is another. Third is the prohibition of vote dilution, which is the remapping of districts to suppress the minority vote. The final provision was one of the most controversial of the Act. It established the federal oversight

Although the majority correctly avoided the constitutional question, Justice Scalia authored a concurring opinion addressing the issue. Justice Scalia’s opinion poses the question: “[w]hether or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection?” Id. at 2682, 174 L. Ed. 2d 490, 515. Justice Scalia’s assertion that “Title VII’s disparate-impact provisions place a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes” mischaracterizes the Act. Id. The disparate-impact provision of Title VII simply allows for and encourages employers to be cognizant of the racial impact of their business practices so that they can craft fair assessment procedures that gives everyone equal opportunity. Justice Scalia callously classified the City’s action as racial decision-making. This contention disregards the fact that race consciousness was deemed

Racial gerrymandering is also a conflict to the XIV Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because the district maps in Virginia’s case favors whites over African-Americans, giving them more votes in legislation of districts. African Americans don’t have an equal representation because of how the districts were drawn. Although the African-American population in Virginia isn’t much compared to the white population, that does not mean that the number of African-Americans should consist of one commonwealth representative. This exemplifies how African-Americans’ chance to obtain such a political position in Virginia is unfair as a result of gerrymandering.

Resident of Shelby County, Tennessee, Charles Baker filed a suit against the Secretary of State Joe Carr. Baker`s complaint alleged that the Tennessee legislature had not redrawn its districts since 1901 in violation of the Tennessee Constitution. Baker then living in the urban area asserted that since the legislature had not been changed in over 10 years this would then affect his vote which would be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause stated in the Fourteenth Amendment. Baker`s objective was to sought after an injunction stopping further elections and reapportionment.

Holder case, instead of in an effort for the bill to pass. From The Washington Post in the Supreme Court Case Shelby County v. Holder “The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was unconstitutional. Section 4 lays out the formulas for how the Justice Department enforces Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires that the states identified with a history of discrimination obtain approval from the federal government before they can make changes to their election law.” With the Supreme Courts ruling states such as "Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia in their entirety; and parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota" are free to redraw districting maps, and make changes to election laws, without the approval of the Federal government, or Justice Department. I believe Congresswoman Jackson Lee introduced the bill in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Shelby County v. Holder 2013 court case, due to her quote from The Hill in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Shelby County v. Holder court case, where Congresswoman Jackson Lee says “"We cannot afford to sit back and watch our country move backwards — as legislators we must act," Jackson Lee said Wednesday. "[B]ased on the Shelby case and its rationale, it is clear that Voting Rights Act is needed more than ever."” That is why I believe in the title of the legislation H.R.75 – Coretta Scott King Mid-Decade Redistricting Prohibition Act of 2015, Congresswoman Jackson Lee added the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. wife’s name Coretta Scott King, because the legislation is a response to the Supreme Courts ruling in Shelby County

The case is brought to the Supreme Court by the Plaintiff Charles Baker suing Secretary of State of Tennessee Joe Carr, for the failure to redraw the legislative voting boundaries, something that was due over 60 years prior. A law that Tennessee legislature apportioned both houses and provided reapportionment every ten years on the basis of the population reported by the census, but failed to do since 1901. Baker argued that the population had shifted from the rural areas to the urban areas and that he himself was being affected and was being denied his equal protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. He sought to the court that that the state officials should hold an at-large election or they should halt the election process until the

Along comes the 14th amendment and the [Equal protection Clause] forbidding the States to discriminate. Setting aside for the moment the issues of the States and their guaranteed republican form of government under the new constitution, we see that within the 14th Amendment resides the authority to enforce the law of Equal Protection and, it has teeth. “Congress shall make no law,” yet they have made such a law, the 14th amendment, and they gave it teeth, the power to enforce, it is clearly written into that

Holder, Justice Roberts argued that the constraints, such as preclearance, in Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act where applicable in the 1960s and 1970s but as the environment has changed, the sections now violate States rights and power to regulate elections that was granted to them by the Tenth Amendment. The Court also held that the formula established is outdated and does not fall in line with the changes that have occurred in the past 50 years. Justice Thomas, who wrote the concurring opinion, argued that since blatant discrimination is now rare, “Congress cannot constitutionally justify placing the burden of Section 5 on the states in question” (SHELBY COUNTY v.

Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan, the lone vote against the ruling, gave the dissenting opinion of the court. Harlan “insisted that the court had ignored the obvious purpose of the Separate Car Act, which was, under the guise of giving equal accommodation for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches. Because it presupposed—and was universally understood to presuppose—the inferiority of African Americans, the act imposed a badge of servitude upon them in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.” (Duignan). He also stated, “The sure guaranty of the peace and security of each race is the clear, distinct, unconditional recognition by our governments, national and state, of every right that inheres in civil freedom, and of the equality before the law of all citizens of the United States, without regard to race. State enactments regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race, and cunningly devised to defeat legitimate results of the war, under the pretense of recognizing equality of rights, can have no other result than to render permanent peace impossible, and to keep alive a conflict of races, the continuance of which must do harm to all concerned” (Quotes from Plessy v. Fergusun). Harlan further explained what the constitution says by stating “Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In

Few facts about the case is that this case was related back and forth to the Reynolds v. slims (1964) cases which is the cases where the “one person, one vote” developed. This case brought up many questions such as Is it even feasible to move from total population to eligible voter standard? What is the basic constitutional value that one person, one vote serves? Some were against the case some were not but the ones who were, were mostly people that did not live in cities. Some argument was that they saw no issue and then others saw it as a problem. Furthermore, due to the fact that Texas uses total population in each district, it created an issue with both Texas residents Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger.