"High court to decide on voter proof of citizenship; Tougher Arizona rule conflicts with federal law" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, October 16, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether Arizona may require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections. The federal appeals court in San Francisco had blocked the state law, saying it conflicted with a federal one.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case early next year, and the law will remain suspended until then.
The state law requires prospective voters to prove they are citizens by providing copies of or information concerning various documents, including birth certificates, passports, naturalization papers, or Arizona driver’s licenses, which are available only to people lawfully present in the state.
The federal law, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, allows voters to register using a federal form that asks, ‘‘Are you a citizen of the United States?’’ Prospective voters must check a box for yes or no, and they must sign the form, swearing they are citizens under penalty of perjury.
The question for the justices is whether the state was entitled to supplement those federal requirements with its own....
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Related:
Supreme Court set to review key section of Voting Rights Act
Justices to consider ‘bailout provision’ in civil rights law
"Key part of Voting Rights Act may be overturned; Supreme court justices pose though questions" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, February 28, 2013
WASHINGTON — A central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may be in peril, judging from tough questioning on Wednesday from the Supreme Court’s more conservative members.
If the court overturns the provision, nine states, mostly in the South, would become free to change voting procedures without first getting permission from federal officials.
In a vivid argument in which the lawyers and justices drew varying lessons from the legacies of slavery, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement, the court’s conservative wing suggested that the modern South had outgrown its troubled past and that the legal burdens on the nine states were no longer justified.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked skeptically whether ‘‘the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North.’’ Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote is probably crucial, asked whether Alabama today is an ‘‘independent sovereign’’ or whether it must live ‘‘under the trusteeship of the United States government.’’
Justice Antonin Scalia said the law, once a civil rights landmark, now amounted to a ‘‘perpetuation of racial entitlement.’’
That remark created the sharpest exchange of the morning, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the other end. ‘‘Do you think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement?’’ she later asked a lawyer challenging the law, with an edge in her voice that left little doubt she was responding to Scalia’s statement. ‘‘Do you think that racial discrimination in voting has ended, that there is none anywhere?’’
The outcome of the case will most likely remain in doubt until the end of the court’s current term, in June. Many legal observers predicted that the justices would overturn part of the voting law in 2009, when the court had the same conservative-leaning majority, only to be proved wrong.
One important change is that Roberts suggested in the 2009 ruling that Congress update its formula to determine which parts of the country should remain subject to the law. Congress has not done so.
The question at the heart of Wednesday’s argument was whether Congress, in reauthorizing the provision for 25 years in 2006, was entitled to use a formula based on historic practices and voting data from elections held decades ago.
Should the court strike down the law’s central provision, it would be easier for lawmakers in the nine states to enact the kind of laws Republicans in several states have recently advocated, including tighter identification standards. It would also give those states more flexibility to move polling places and redraw legislative districts.
The four members of the court’s liberal wing, citing data and history, argued that Congress remained entitled to make the judgment that the provision was still needed in the covered jurisdictions.
The law passed the Senate unanimously and House overwhelmingly vote in 2006.
‘‘It’s an old disease,’’ Justice Stephen G. Breyer said of efforts to thwart minority voting. ‘‘It’s gotten a lot better. A lot better. But it’s still there.’’
Kennedy said that history taught a different lesson, referring to the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. ‘‘The Marshall Plan was very good, too,’’ he said. ‘‘But times change.’’
Breyer looked to a different conflict.
“What do you think the Civil War was about?’’ he asked....
See: Sunday Globe Special: Night at the Oscars
Not what they told me in my history books.
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"Chief justice blasted over Mass. voting ‘cheap shot’" by Akilah Johnson | Globe Staff, March 01, 2013
Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. certainly sounded authoritative when he made a striking, though unflattering, declaration about Massachusetts as the high court heard arguments over the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is designed to assure equal access across races to polling booths.
“Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African-American voter turnout?” Roberts asked Donald Verrilli Jr., solicitor general for the Department of Justice, during Wednesday’s arguments.
“I do not know that,” Verrilli answered.
“Massachusetts,” Roberts responded, adding that even Mississippi has a narrower gap.
Roberts later asked if Verrilli knew which state has the greatest disparity in registration. Again, Roberts said it was Massachusetts.
The problem is, Roberts is woefully wrong on those points, according to Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who on Thursday branded Roberts’s assertion a slur and made a declaration of his own. “I’m calling him out,” Galvin said.
Galvin was not alone in his view. Academics and Massachusetts politicians said that Roberts appeared to be misguided. A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to offer supporting evidence of Roberts’s view, referring a reporter to the court transcript.
On Thursday, Galvin tried to set the record straight. “We have one of the highest voter registrations in the country,” he said, “so this whole effort to make a cheap-shot point at Massachusetts is deceptive.”
Shelby County, Ala., is challenging a provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires nine states, mostly in the South, to seek permission from federal officials before changing voting procedures. Those states argue that the restrictions are unfair, and Roberts seemed to agree, appearing to use Massachusetts as an example of states that have been exempt from certain provisions of the act, yet less successful in providing ballot access.
“In the state of Massachusetts, we’ve seen a great increase in voter participation in communities of color, particularly among African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians,” said Boston city councilor Tito Jackson, who served as political director for Governor Deval Patrick’s most recent campaign.
In the November 2012 election, there was little difference in voter turnout in Boston neighborhoods with high concentrations of white or black voters. In Charlestown, where 80 percent of residents are white, 68 percent of voters cast ballots in November. In Roxbury, the traditional heart of Boston’s African-American community, about 64 percent of voters came out to the polls.
Galvin and political scientists speculated that Roberts drew his conclusions using US Census Bureau data known as “The Current Population Survey,” which collects information on voting and registration every other year. Political scientists say this is one of the few national databases, if not the only one, providing state-by-state voting information.
But a review of those census data appears to contradict Roberts, showing such states as Washington, Arizona, and Minnesota with similar if not bigger gaps between black and white voters.
“The concept of black communities in Massachusetts not voting is an old slur, and it’s not true,” Galvin said. “I guess the point [Roberts] is trying to make is Mississippi is doing so much better they don’t need the Voting Rights Act. He can still relay that conclusion, but he shouldn’t be using phony statistics. It’s deceptive, and it’s truly disturbing.”
According to the census figures, a larger percentage of blacks voted in Mississippi than whites, one percentage point more.
But political scientists caution against drawing sweeping conclusions from the census survey or using it to compare states. The black population in nearly one-fourth of states surveyed in 2010 was so small that it was not possible to make statistically reliable comparisons. And the margin of error for nearly another quarter of the states, including Massachusetts, was in the double digits.
“The margin of error is huge,” said Michael P. McDonald, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University who specializes in American elections. “They’re not reliable numbers.”
That’s not to say Massachusetts or states and municipalities north of the Mason-Dixon Line are bastions of voting equality that do not need the scrutiny that comes with the Voting Rights Act.
Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx are subject to Section 5 of the law, which requires US oversight.
When scrutinizing voter turnout numbers, political scientists said it is imperative to look at those figures in the context of the election being held. Was it a national, state, or local election? Was it a midterm election? Did the candidates heavily court voters within communities of color? And what is the make-up of the black community, citizens registered to vote or immigrants who have not become citizens? Otherwise, the numbers exist in isolation, analysts said.
It would be disingenuous to compare elections in Massachusetts and Mississippi, said James Jennings of Tufts, because they take place in different contexts. The two states have a different set of challenges based on region, history, and populations.
He cited the election of Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate. Warren courted voters of color, unlike the 2010 special election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy, a race that pitted Republican Scott Brown against Democrat Martha Coakley.
“They both ignored black and Latino voters,” Jennings said.
So, he said, the gap between voters of color and white voters was probably bigger.
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NEXT DAY UPDATE: Voting rights march remembered
Related:
Supreme Court set to review key section of Voting Rights Act
Justices to consider ‘bailout provision’ in civil rights law
"Key part of Voting Rights Act may be overturned; Supreme court justices pose though questions" by Adam Liptak | New York Times, February 28, 2013
WASHINGTON — A central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 may be in peril, judging from tough questioning on Wednesday from the Supreme Court’s more conservative members.
If the court overturns the provision, nine states, mostly in the South, would become free to change voting procedures without first getting permission from federal officials.
In a vivid argument in which the lawyers and justices drew varying lessons from the legacies of slavery, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement, the court’s conservative wing suggested that the modern South had outgrown its troubled past and that the legal burdens on the nine states were no longer justified.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked skeptically whether ‘‘the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North.’’ Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote is probably crucial, asked whether Alabama today is an ‘‘independent sovereign’’ or whether it must live ‘‘under the trusteeship of the United States government.’’
Justice Antonin Scalia said the law, once a civil rights landmark, now amounted to a ‘‘perpetuation of racial entitlement.’’
That remark created the sharpest exchange of the morning, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the other end. ‘‘Do you think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement?’’ she later asked a lawyer challenging the law, with an edge in her voice that left little doubt she was responding to Scalia’s statement. ‘‘Do you think that racial discrimination in voting has ended, that there is none anywhere?’’
The outcome of the case will most likely remain in doubt until the end of the court’s current term, in June. Many legal observers predicted that the justices would overturn part of the voting law in 2009, when the court had the same conservative-leaning majority, only to be proved wrong.
One important change is that Roberts suggested in the 2009 ruling that Congress update its formula to determine which parts of the country should remain subject to the law. Congress has not done so.
The question at the heart of Wednesday’s argument was whether Congress, in reauthorizing the provision for 25 years in 2006, was entitled to use a formula based on historic practices and voting data from elections held decades ago.
Should the court strike down the law’s central provision, it would be easier for lawmakers in the nine states to enact the kind of laws Republicans in several states have recently advocated, including tighter identification standards. It would also give those states more flexibility to move polling places and redraw legislative districts.
The four members of the court’s liberal wing, citing data and history, argued that Congress remained entitled to make the judgment that the provision was still needed in the covered jurisdictions.
The law passed the Senate unanimously and House overwhelmingly vote in 2006.
‘‘It’s an old disease,’’ Justice Stephen G. Breyer said of efforts to thwart minority voting. ‘‘It’s gotten a lot better. A lot better. But it’s still there.’’
Kennedy said that history taught a different lesson, referring to the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. ‘‘The Marshall Plan was very good, too,’’ he said. ‘‘But times change.’’
Breyer looked to a different conflict.
“What do you think the Civil War was about?’’ he asked....
See: Sunday Globe Special: Night at the Oscars
Not what they told me in my history books.
--more--"
"Chief justice blasted over Mass. voting ‘cheap shot’" by Akilah Johnson | Globe Staff, March 01, 2013
Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. certainly sounded authoritative when he made a striking, though unflattering, declaration about Massachusetts as the high court heard arguments over the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is designed to assure equal access across races to polling booths.
“Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African-American voter turnout?” Roberts asked Donald Verrilli Jr., solicitor general for the Department of Justice, during Wednesday’s arguments.
“I do not know that,” Verrilli answered.
“Massachusetts,” Roberts responded, adding that even Mississippi has a narrower gap.
Roberts later asked if Verrilli knew which state has the greatest disparity in registration. Again, Roberts said it was Massachusetts.
The problem is, Roberts is woefully wrong on those points, according to Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who on Thursday branded Roberts’s assertion a slur and made a declaration of his own. “I’m calling him out,” Galvin said.
Galvin was not alone in his view. Academics and Massachusetts politicians said that Roberts appeared to be misguided. A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to offer supporting evidence of Roberts’s view, referring a reporter to the court transcript.
On Thursday, Galvin tried to set the record straight. “We have one of the highest voter registrations in the country,” he said, “so this whole effort to make a cheap-shot point at Massachusetts is deceptive.”
Shelby County, Ala., is challenging a provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires nine states, mostly in the South, to seek permission from federal officials before changing voting procedures. Those states argue that the restrictions are unfair, and Roberts seemed to agree, appearing to use Massachusetts as an example of states that have been exempt from certain provisions of the act, yet less successful in providing ballot access.
“In the state of Massachusetts, we’ve seen a great increase in voter participation in communities of color, particularly among African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians,” said Boston city councilor Tito Jackson, who served as political director for Governor Deval Patrick’s most recent campaign.
In the November 2012 election, there was little difference in voter turnout in Boston neighborhoods with high concentrations of white or black voters. In Charlestown, where 80 percent of residents are white, 68 percent of voters cast ballots in November. In Roxbury, the traditional heart of Boston’s African-American community, about 64 percent of voters came out to the polls.
Galvin and political scientists speculated that Roberts drew his conclusions using US Census Bureau data known as “The Current Population Survey,” which collects information on voting and registration every other year. Political scientists say this is one of the few national databases, if not the only one, providing state-by-state voting information.
But a review of those census data appears to contradict Roberts, showing such states as Washington, Arizona, and Minnesota with similar if not bigger gaps between black and white voters.
“The concept of black communities in Massachusetts not voting is an old slur, and it’s not true,” Galvin said. “I guess the point [Roberts] is trying to make is Mississippi is doing so much better they don’t need the Voting Rights Act. He can still relay that conclusion, but he shouldn’t be using phony statistics. It’s deceptive, and it’s truly disturbing.”
According to the census figures, a larger percentage of blacks voted in Mississippi than whites, one percentage point more.
But political scientists caution against drawing sweeping conclusions from the census survey or using it to compare states. The black population in nearly one-fourth of states surveyed in 2010 was so small that it was not possible to make statistically reliable comparisons. And the margin of error for nearly another quarter of the states, including Massachusetts, was in the double digits.
“The margin of error is huge,” said Michael P. McDonald, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University who specializes in American elections. “They’re not reliable numbers.”
That’s not to say Massachusetts or states and municipalities north of the Mason-Dixon Line are bastions of voting equality that do not need the scrutiny that comes with the Voting Rights Act.
Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx are subject to Section 5 of the law, which requires US oversight.
When scrutinizing voter turnout numbers, political scientists said it is imperative to look at those figures in the context of the election being held. Was it a national, state, or local election? Was it a midterm election? Did the candidates heavily court voters within communities of color? And what is the make-up of the black community, citizens registered to vote or immigrants who have not become citizens? Otherwise, the numbers exist in isolation, analysts said.
It would be disingenuous to compare elections in Massachusetts and Mississippi, said James Jennings of Tufts, because they take place in different contexts. The two states have a different set of challenges based on region, history, and populations.
He cited the election of Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate. Warren courted voters of color, unlike the 2010 special election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy, a race that pitted Republican Scott Brown against Democrat Martha Coakley.
“They both ignored black and Latino voters,” Jennings said.
So, he said, the gap between voters of color and white voters was probably bigger.
--more--"
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Voting rights march remembered
"High court to revisit race in college admissions; University of Texas program put in spotlight" by Mark Sherman | Associated Press, October 09, 2012
WASHINGTON — The justices have put this divisive social issue back on their agenda in the middle of a presidential election campaign....
The Obama administration, 57 of the Fortune 100 companies, and large numbers of public and private colleges that could be affected by the outcome are backing the Texas program. Among the benefits of affirmative action, the administration argues, is that it creates a pipeline for a diverse officer corps that it called ‘‘essential to the military’s operational readiness.’’ In 2003, the court cited the importance of a similar message from military leaders....
The case also raises several contentious side issues, including whether affirmative-action programs hurt the very people they are supposed to be helping. A new book by law professor Richard Sander and journalist Stuart Taylor argues that ‘‘large preferences often place students in environments where they can neither learn nor compete effectively, even though these same students would thrive had they gone to less competitive but still quite good schools.’’ Their book, ‘‘Mismatch,’’ says these students are set up to fail, getting lower grades and dropping out more often than white students with similar backgrounds.
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