From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/feb/22/shelby-voting-rights-act-supreme-court
Debo Adegbile to go before supreme court to defend Voting Rights Act and argue key provision should not be struck down
Ed Pilkington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 February 2013
The lawyer who will next week go before the US supreme court to defend the Voting Rights Act has warned that if a key provision of the law that prevents discrimination at the polling booth largely in southern states is struck down, it would “set the hands of the clock winding backwards” for millions of minority voters.
Debo Adegbile, special counsel for the NAACP, the country’s largest civil rights organisation, will have the momentous task on Wednesday of defending one of the mainstays of America’s prolonged struggle against racial discrimination.
Lined up against him will be an array of conservative lawyers and legislators, many based in the south, where the sting of the legislation is felt most keenly.
Wednesday’s hearing, in which the nine supreme court justices will hear oral argument before delivering a ruling expected in June, is being seen as the greatest threat to the Voting Rights Act since it was enacted in 1965. The focus of the debate will be Section 5, a provision under which 16 states – mainly though not exclusively in the south – are subject to stringent federal monitoring designed to prevent them discriminating against African American and other minority voters.
In Shelby County v Holder, representatives of one of the proscribed areas – Shelby County in Alabama – are calling on the justices to throw out Section 5 on the grounds that racial segregation and discrimination are in the past, and therefore such exceptional measures are no longer necessary. Under the terms of Section 5, any of the identified jurisdictions must seek “pre-clearance” from the Department of Justice or a federal court in Washington before they can make any substantial changes to their voting arrangements.
Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/feb/22/shelby-voting-rights-act-supreme-court
