In a 5-4 decision that pitted the conservative justices against the liberal ones, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act today. The court said the section, which required certain regions of the country — mainly southern states — to get clearance from Justice Department before they made any change to voting laws or procedures, was unconstitutional.
Section 4 was passed along with the rest of the VOting Rights Act by Congress in 1965 to ensure those covered states did not violate the VRA by adopting procedures to prevent minority groups from voting in elections. Congress has renewed it ever since, essentially freezing the “pre-clearance requirements” for those regions to standards based in the mid-60s when the battles of the Civil Rights era were still raging. States and local governments have have chafed at still being under the restrictions 50 years later. Defenders of the law say that is necessary though to prevent backsliding in those regions.
