Bob Riley, Governor of Alabama v. Yvonne Kennedy et al (553 U.S. 406)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 27, 2008 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 553 U.S. 406 · 128 S. Ct. 1970
- Decided
- May 27, 2008
- Term
- October Term 2007
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents a novel question concerning § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The setting, in a nutshell: A covered State passed a law adopting a new election practice, obtained the preclearance required by § 5, and held an election. Soon thereafter, the law under which the election took place was invalidated by the State’s highest court on the ground that it violated a controlling provision of the State’s Constitution. The question presented: Must the State obtain fresh preclearance in order to reinstate the election practice prevailing before enactment of the law struck down by the State’s Supreme Court? We hold that, for §5 purposes, the invalidated law never gained “force or effect.” Therefore, the State’s reversion to its prior practice did not rank as a “change” requiring preclearance. I The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973 et seq., “was designed by Congress to banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting, which ha[d] infected the electoral process in parts of our country for nearly a century.” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 308 (1966). In three earlier statutes, passed in 1957,1960, and 1964, Congress had empowered the Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) to combat voting discrimination through “case-by-case litigation.” Id., at 313. These…
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