Until June 25th, when the Supreme Court handed down its now infamous decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the entire state of Texas was a "covered" jurisdiction under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. When a jurisdiction is covered, it may not not make changes to
any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from that in force or effect on the date used to determine coverage, until either:
(1) A declaratory judgment is obtained from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that such qualification, prerequisite, standard, practice, or procedure neither has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, or
(2) It has been submitted to the Attorney General and the Attorney General has interposed no objection within a 60-day period following submission.
As the New York Times aptly explained in its headline recently, the outcome in Shelby County has caused formerly covered jurisdictions, mostly in the south, to "Rush to Enact Voting Laws." Naturally, these are not laws that expand access to the franchise.
But the Supreme Court left a window open to allow jurisdictions to be covered through a different mechanism: suits brought under § 3 of the VRA. One group of litigants already involved as Intervenor-Defendants in a suit opposite Texas asked for just this relief in a motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week.
Even though the Department of Justice is also a defendant in that suit, it has thus far "indicated that it is not in a position to state a view at this time" on whether or not (a) bail-in is appropriate for Texas or (b) the suit in question is even the appropriate vehicle for such an attempt.
In plain English, VRA § 3 says that if you can show that a jurisdiction has engaged in racially discriminatory practices related to voting, a Federal court can "bail-in" the jurisdiction so that it is "covered" under VRA § 5. A covered jurisdiction cannot modify any of election laws or practices without approval from a Federal court or the Department of Justice.
After the jump I pull out some of the major points made in the motion. I also draw from the motion some of the history of state-wide bail-in under VRA § 3. (Some) legal wonkery follows!
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