Texas district wins voting rights act exemption(SCOTUS)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC/AP

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled narrowly Monday in a challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act, exempting a small Texas governing authority from a key provision of the civil rights law but side-stepping the larger constitutional issue.

The court, with only one justice in dissent, avoided the major constitutional questions raised in the case over the federal government's most powerful tool to prevent discriminatory voting changes since the mid-1960s.

The law requires all or parts of 16 states, mainly in the South, with a history of discrimination in voting to get approval in advance of making changes in the way elections are conducted.

The court said that the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 in Austin, Texas, can opt out of the advance approval requirement, reversing a lower federal court that found it could not.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31487579/ns/politics-white_house/

[Hulk]

1. Damn! You KNOW Texans don't like being told they aren't #1 or...

...can do whatever they hell they please.

I live down in Mexico, and am SURROUNDED by Texans. Good folks, but there's a little chip in their brain that tells them they are "something special". Their state, after all, WAS the biggest. It DOES take two or three days just to drive through the ugly flat piece of "once Mexico".

I was just informed last week that Texas was a really "great place until the 'yankees moved down and ruined it'". These people are pretty full of themselves.

We have to put up with it, because they are one of the fifty...but they are "different"....not necessarily in "a good way".

Good for the courts. Guess they realized if they didn't cave, the whole state would be put on the national stage and told what a bunch of ass-hats they are down there.

[sabra]

2. Supreme Court sidesteps ruling on Voting Rights Act

Source: USA Today

USA TODAY's Joan Biskupic reports that the Supreme Court has declined to decide whether a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is constitutional, sidestepping by an 8-1 vote the dilemma at the heart of a closely watched case.

The disputed provision gives the U.S. Justice Department power to review proposed election-law changes in several states, mostly in the South, and many other counties and municipalities, where race discrimination has been most flagrant. The case was shaping up to be a defining test of an ideologically split court that has been increasingly suspicious of government policies attempting to remedy racial bias.

Yet, Biskupic reports, the justices opted to avoid the constitutional question and, rather, narrowly decided that it should be easier for certain political jurisdictions to be exempt from the so-called pre-clearance requirements. The decision generally would allow all places that can show that they have not used a forbidden voting test or other discriminatory measure for 10 years to be free of Justice Department oversight.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas, the current court's only African American, said the justices should have decided the looming constitutional issue. He would have struck down the law. The Voting Rights Act, a landmark of Congress' civil rights agenda in the 1960s, has been repeatedly renewed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court over the years.

Read more: http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/06/supreme-court-sidesteps-ruling-on-voting-rights-act.html

[Stellabella]

3. Thomas is such a bigoted self-hater.

He would have struck down the Voting Rights Act. What a loon. I'm speechless.

I cannot stomach people who disparage the very laws that put them where they are now.

[floridablue]

4. The anti affirmative action Justice

If it wasn't for affirmative action and Danforth he would be picking cotton.

[glitch]

5. Yes but if they deny the very laws that put them where they are now then they did it all alone

and are thus magnificent in their own minds!

[old mark]

6. He reminds me of a guy I worked for for a few weeks - he owned a music

store, and acted like he was a self-made millionaire - turned out he got the business from his dad, who actually started it in the 1950's.

mark

[glitch]

7. There was always at least one in every place I've ever worked.

The silver spoon babies are always the worst about "pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps", I really think the denial must be a necessary survival tool for them.

[kpete]

8. Breaking News: NAMUDNO Decided 8-1 Reversing on BAILOUT Grounds, Not Striking Down Act

Source: Election Law

Breaking News: NAMUDNO Decided 8-1 Reversing on BAILOUT Grounds, Not Striking Down Act

Link to opinion:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
NORTHWEST AUSTIN MUNICIPAL UTILITY
DISTRICT NUMBER ONE v. HOLDER,
ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
No. 08–322. Argued April 29, 2009—Decided June 22, 2009
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/namudno%20opinion.pdf

CJ Roberts author; partial dissent by J. Thomas.
No opinion in Citizens United today. More to come.



Read more: http://electionlawblog.org/archives/013902.html

---

Argument Preview

A major constitutional controversy, with potentially far-reaching impact on the voting rights of minorities, reaches the Supreme Court in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder (08-322). It tests the constitutionality of Congress’ 25-year extension of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

[tomreedtoon]

9. Explanation: who the hell is Namudno? Some dictator?

I realize this is obviously breathless news to you, but this Namudno guy hasn't been in the press as far as I know. You might take a moment and offer us non-obsessed people some explanation.

[kpete]

10. answer:

NAMUDNO =
NORTHWEST AUSTIN MUNICIPAL UTILITY
DISTRICT NUMBER ONE

[tomreedtoon]

17. Oh. It's Texas. No reason to get upset.

After all that Enron money, they should be doing well.

[bluestateguy]

11. What is the Citizens United case?

They always seem to be suing over something.

[RoyGBiv]

12. So basically, they avoided it ...

By ruling that section 4 relief is available to NAMUDNO assuming they meet the test -- which they do not -- SCOTUS avoids the question of the constitutionality of section 5 altogether.

Is that how you're reading this?

I generally have to read a SCOTUS opinion half a dozen times before it fully starts to sink in. After reading the summary holding, that's my basic interpretation.

[elleng]

14. Yes, thats what they did. When they can avoid, thats what they do.

.

[RoyGBiv]

15. Yes, I understand ...

Avoiding mucking up an already accepted interpretation with extraneous decisions should be the way they work.

Some were worried that Roberts and Alito especially would want to tackle section 5 and would find a way to do so. I'm glad that did not come to pass.

[elleng]

13. Supreme Court upholds Voting Rights Act without reaching constitutional question.

The US Supreme Court on Monday upheld a controversial provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) but avoided a constitutional question. The Court ruled 8-1 in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder that the VRA permits the appellant municipality to "bail out" from the preclearance requirement of Section 5 if it can establish a history of compliance with the VRA, but declined to rule on the constitutionality of Congress's 25-year extension of the section. The US District Court for the District of Columbia had found in favor of the federal government that the municipality could not "bail out" from the preclearance requirement.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2009/06/supreme-court-upholds-voting-rights-act.php

[TXDemGal]

16. Woot!!

Folks, my family and I LIVE in this municipal utility district. And I'm here to say this suit was initiated by several wingnuts on the "MUD" board who were bankrolled by a conservative law firm. They did not and do not represent the majority sentiment in this community. Their goal was to eliminate Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act. THEY FAILED!!! This is a great day. :toast: :bounce: :party: :beer:

[Blue_Tires]

18. so what will elections look like in that district years from now, i wonder?