Landmark Civil Rights Law in Jeopardy?

April 29, 2009— -- Some residents of a small Texas municipal district believe that a key section of landmark voting rights legislation -- created in 1965 to protect minorities in jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination -- is archaic and should be abolished.

The debate has teed up today's Supreme Court argument, which could forever change the intersection between election law and civil rights.

"The America that has just elected Barack Obama is not the same America that existed when Section 5 was put into place," says Gregory S. Coleman, an attorney for the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District.

Section 5 refers to the portion of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that mandates that the Justice Department approve any change in voting procedures for covered jurisdictions.

Coleman will tell the Supreme Court justices that the district is suing the government because Congress was wrong to reauthorize key sections of the Voting Rights Act in 2006.

"At some point you have to say we've come far enough. Why do we and the other affected jurisdictions have to have the federal government looking over our shoulder," says Coleman.

He calls Section 5 -- which currently covers nine states and portions of another seven -- an "ancient formula" that has become a "badge of shame," and he argues that no election-related lawsuit has ever been filed against the district.

The lawsuit was prompted when some residents of the 3,500 community became infuriated that they had to spend two months and hundreds of dollars in legal fees just to move a polling place from a garage to a school. They support the broader goals of the Voting Rights Act but believe Section 5 should be scrubbed.

The case has civil rights lawyers worried. In briefs filed with the court, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund argues, "No statute in our history embodies America's commitment to democracy more clearly than the Voting Rights Act."

"We have Section 5 because of a history of jurisdictions doing everything conceivable to adversely affect the ability of African-Americans initially, and other minorities later, to exercise their right to vote," says John Payton, president of the Legal Defense Fund.