Has the Voting Rights Act's oversight of local registration laws been challenged?
This lifts a question from a comment by Humza Ahmad.
The more I mull it over, the more certain parts of the Voting Rights Act irk me. Specifically, the provision that any change in voter registration laws from certain states must be approved by the DoJ. How has this never seen the Supreme Court? And if it has, please, someone enlighten me. This is not an issue of state's rights; it's an issue of the will of the voters of certain states being subjugated to the whims of Federal appointees and bureaucrats. It is a perversion of the intent of the Voting Rights Act.
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Answer by The Logo
Arguments against it were held this very day (Jan. 19, 2012) at the appellate level. From the Blog of the Legal Times:
A federal appeals court in Washington is reviewing the constitutionality of a provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires certain local and state governments to get permission from the U.S. Justice Department before implementing electoral changes.
Bert Rein, representing Shelby County, Alabama in the suit against the federal government, today urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to strike down Section 5 of the 1965 law as unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled for DOJ last September.
Full text of the article is at http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2012/01/appeals-court-examines-constitutionality-of-voting-rights-act-provision-.html
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