Responding to Shelby County
By Eric Holder seems to be doing everything he can to respond to the Supreme Court’s disemboweling of the Voting Rights Act, and good for him:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced on Thursday that the Justice Department would ask a court to require Texas to get permission from the federal government before making voting changes in that state for the next decade. The move opens a new chapter in the political struggle over election rules after the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act last month.
In a speech before the National Urban League in Philadelphia, Mr. Holder also indicated that the court motion — expected to be filed later on Thursday — is most likely just an opening salvo in a new Obama administration strategy to try to reimpose “preclearance” requirements in parts of the country that have a history of discriminating against minority voters.
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In his speech, Mr. Holder said that evidence submitted to a court last year that the Texas Legislature had intentionally discriminated against Hispanics when redrawing district lines was sufficient to reimpose on that state the “preclearance” safeguard for a decade, noting that the court — in blocking the map — had said the parties “provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than we have space, or need, to address here.”
Mr. Holder said: “Based on the evidence of intentional racial discrimination that was presented last year in the redistricting case, Texas v. Holder — as well as the history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities that the Supreme Court itself has recognized — we believe that the State of Texas should be required to go through a preclearance process whenever it changes its voting laws and practices.”
The department may also soon bring similar legal action against Texas over its voter identification law, which was also blocked by a federal court last year. Hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Shelby County case, the state said it would begin enforcing the law.
I’m not terribly optimistic about the federal courts as currently staffed will effectively enforce the Voting Rights Act, but it’s worth trying to do everything possible. And, as Holder says, there’s “no substitute for legislation that will fill the void left by the Supreme Court’s decision.” If only he were right that the issue “transcends partisanship.”