Voting Rights Act Gets A Reprieve

Seems to me that the Supreme Court nodded to legislative intent by not completely eviscerating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in a ruling handed down today by an 8-1 margin.

The case involved Section 5 of the Act, which requires voting districts that have historically engaged in discrimination to “preclear” any new voting rules changes they make with a federal court or the Department of Justice. Under today’s decision, Section 5 will remain in effect, but voting districts are allowed to “bail out” of its requirements if they can show that they have not recently engaged in race discrimination and are not likely to do so in the future.

Of course, this depends on the test that states have to pass to bail out of the requirements - if they can opt out of the provision easily, then the SCOTUS did the conservatives' bidding. Hopefully judges will impose a more strict standard.