The Atlanta Lawyer August/September 2015 | Page 12

50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act Voting Rights Amendment Bills in Congress By Michael Jablonski [email protected] T he discussion during the Voting Rights Act 50th Anniversary celebration repeatedly referenced two bills in Congress amending the Voting Rights Act to address deficiencies identified by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S.Ct. 1612 (2013). The panelists acknowledged that Shelby County did not invalidate either the preclearance procedure in Section 5 of the act or the enforcement provision in Section 2. Section 5 requires preclearance of changes in election practices demonstrating that the changes had no discriminatory purpose or effect. It applies only to jurisdictions identified by a formula set forth in Section 4. The Supreme Court found the formula to be unconstitutional and invited Congress to revise it. Two bills pending in Congress propose revisions to the formula. coverage of any specific political subdivision in which three or more voting rights violations occurred in 15 previous calendar years or where one violation occurred during the previous 15 years and the political subdivision experienced persistent extremely low minority turnout during that period. H.R. 885 exempts voter discrimination arising from picture ID requirements as a trigger to coverage. The bill authorizes states or their political subdivision to seek a declaratory judgment that they have not employed any technique to abridge the right to vote. A federal court retains jurisdiction to determine how long Section 5 coverage is necessary. The last action on the bill was assignment by the Judiciary Committee to the House Subcommittee on Constitution and Civil Justice on March 16. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL) introduced H.R. 2867, The Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015, on June 24, 2015 with Rep. Lewis as a co-sponsor. Rep Johnson added his name the next day. The bill now has 90 co-sponsors. The bill wa s introduced in the Senate as S.1659 by Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT). There are 31 co-sponsors in the Senate. H.R. 2867 requires Section 5 preclearance to any state with 15 or more voting rights violations during the previous 25 years or 10 violations during that period if the state committed a violation. A specific political subdivision would be covered if three or more violations were found in the previous 25 calendar years. Any jurisdiction found to have met the triggering requirements would be covered by Section 5 for ten years. “It applies only to jurisdictions identified by a formula set forth in Section 4. The Supreme Court found the formula to be unconstitutional and invited Congress to revise it... Two bills pending in Congress propose revisions to the formula.” H.R. 885, The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2015 was introduced on February 11, 2015 by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (WI) with Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Hank Johnson as original co-sponsors. Rep. David Scott signed on as co-sponsor on April 14, 2015. H.R. 885 revises requirements for determining that a jurisdiction is covered by Section 5 if five or more voting rights violations occurred in the state during the previous 15 years. Voting rights violations by political subdivisions count towards the total but at least one violation must be by the state itself. The bill mandates 12 THE ATLANTA LAWYER August/September 2015 The House Judiciary Committee referred H.R.2867 to the Subcommittee on Constitution and Civil Justice on July 9. The Senate version was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary upon introduction. The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association