The Department of Justice wants to reclaim its oversight of Texas voting laws, asking a federal court to reinstate its power to approve changes made by the state, now that the Supreme Court has gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act.
“Based on the evidence of intentional racial discrimination that was presented last year in the redistricting case, Texas v. Holder … we believe that the State of Texas should be required to go through a preclearance process whenever it changes its voting laws and practices,” said Attorney General Eric Holder during a meeting of the National Urban League. He added: “This is the Department’s first action to protect voting rights following the Shelby County decision, but it will not be our last.”
Reuters reports:
The Texas action was expected to be the first in a nationwide roll-out of voting rights cases aimed at counteracting the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that invalidated a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The Obama administration has been searching for new ways to oppose voting discrimination since a 5-4 conservative majority on the high court ruled that a formula used to determine which states and localities were subject to extra federal scrutiny was outdated.
In June, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, the part of the law that determined which areas of the country, like Texas, were subject to DOJ preclearance because of a history of racial discrimination at the polls. Though the Court did not address the constitutionality of Section 5, which requires the preclearance in general, in the absence of Section 4 it is inoperable.
