[EL] early reports from oral argument in Shelby County

[Abigail Thernstrom]

	I was there this morning, and I agree, section 4 is in trouble.

	I think I was the only one on the list serve to predict, after the NAMUDNO argument, that section 5 would be left standing.

	And, as people who read my Reuter post know, I have been predicting the Court will not now risk a political firestorm by striking down section 5.

	Prepared to eat my words.

	Abby


Abigail Thernstrom
Vice-chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Adjunct Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
www.thernstrom.com



On Feb 27, 2013, at 12:36 PM, Pitts, Michael Jude wrote:

> Once again it seems like there are five votes to strike down Section 5.  However, we’ve been here before in NAMUDNO where after the oral argument all the smart money seemed to be moving in the direction of the statute being struck down.  Yet it didn’t happen.  So I’m wondering if there are any folks on the list who attended both the NAMUDNO argument and today’s argument and can give a comparison as to whether the tenor of today’s argument was that much different than the one held in NAMUDNO.
>  
> Best,
> Mike
>  
> Michael J. Pitts
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> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
> Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 12:25 PM
> To: law-election at UCI.edu
> Subject: [EL] early reports from oral argument in Shelby County
>  
> Reports from Oral Argument Trickle In: ALL Look Bad for Section 5
> 
> Posted on February 27, 2013 9:24 am by Rick Hasen
> NBC News: NBC’s Pete Williams reported after the oral argument, “I think it’s a safe prediction to say that the Voting Rights Act, as it now stands, is not going to survive. The question is: how far will the Supreme Court go in striking parts of it down?”
> 
> Bloomberg: “The skeptics today included the likely swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who faulted Congress for relying on a decades- old formula for determining which states were covered. Kennedy said if Congress is going to “single out” some states, “it should do it by name.”
> 
> AP: Chief Justice John Roberts asked the government’s top Supreme Court lawyer whether the Obama administration thinks Southerners “are more racist than citizens in the North.” The answer from Solicitor General Donald Verrilli was no.
> 
> Reuters: Conservatives on the Supreme Court expressed strong doubts about the validity of a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signaling that there could be a majority to strike down the heart of the landmark law. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing vote on racial issues, said that “times change” when weighing the provision that requires strict oversight of election laws in nine mainly Southern states.
> 
> MORE to come.
> 
> <image001.png>
> Posted in Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act | Comments Off
> If The Voting Rights Section 5 Falls….
> 
> Posted on February 27, 2013 9:15 am by Rick Hasen
> there will be an opening for Congress to pass some legislation, as public pressure will mount to do something in response to a Supreme Court decision.  I laid out the options for what Congress might do—one question is whether a new Voting Rights Act would be race based on election-administration based.  Lots of others weighed in on the question too at this Reuters symposium.
> 
> <image001.png>
> Posted in Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act | Comments Off
> -- 
> Rick Hasen
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