VRA faces judicial challenge

Alabamans have filed suit to challenge the Voting Rights Act.

True, but not quite that insidious.
At issue is Section 5 of the voting rights act, which requires federal approval - or "pre-clearance" - for any changes in election laws or redistricting decisions in nine states, mostly in the South, and parts of seven others.

"There can be no question that the VRA ushered in long-overdue changes in electoral opportunities for minorities throughout the Deep South," attorneys for Shelby County wrote in the lawsuit, filed last April.

However, they wrote, "it is no longer constitutionally justifiable for Congress to arbitrarily impose on Shelby County and other covered jurisdictions disfavored treatment ... without a legislative record showing that [they] are still engaged in the type of 'unremitting and ingenious defiance of the constitution' that justified enactment of the VRA in 1965."
 
I wonder if this is related to the several states which are enacting laws requiring candidates prove their eligibility to be put on state ballots. Maybe Alabama wants to join the fun, and needs to get out from under the federal thumb to do so.
 
Yeah, those Alabamans don't have any history of using redistricting to manipulate districts along racial lines, do they?
 
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