ACSBlog

by Jeremy Leaming

Following oral argument in Shelby County v. Holder several court-watchers, to the consternation of some, wrote that the Voting Rights Act’s integral enforcement provision, Section 5, looked to be on the chopping block largely based on courtroom theatrics.

But many of those court-watchers, such as The New York Times’ Adam Liptak, noted that it was indeed risky to make  predications based only on oral argument, while nonetheless pointing out that in 2009 in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder, Chief Justice John Roberts and other members of the high court’s right-wing bloc made it rather clear that Congress should revisit the formula used to determine what states are covered by Section 5.

As Liptak noted, Congress did not revisit the formula. And what happened during oral argument earlier this week? You had the Court’s right-wing justices grousing over the same things they did in Northwest. So it doesn’t take much of a leap to figure Justice Anthony Kennedy, who asked how much longer must Alabama remain under U.S. “trusteeship” is ready to join Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in striking Section 5, by ending the use of the formula. (Section 5 requires states and localities, mostly in the South, to get “preclearance” of any proposed changes to their voting laws and procedures to ensure that they do not have the effect of discriminating against voters. The Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments provide Congress the power to take appropriate action to ensure that states do not deprive people of liberty or discriminate against voters because of their race.)

The Brennan Center’s Myrna Pérez writes that the “arguments themselves do not provide much predictive value,” and that little was discussed during oral argument “over what exactly Congress needed to do differently to have appropriately fulfilled its duties.”

ACS President Caroline Fredrickson also told TPM’s Sahil Kapur that the “silver lining is ultimately oral arguments are rarely a predictor of outcomes of the case.”

Yep, lots of folks were predicating Kennedy would save the day for the Obama administration’s landmark health care reform law the Affordable Care Act. And of course we know how that turned out.

As noted on this blog numerous times, Section 5 is the power behind the Voting Rights Act and Congress has the constitutional authority to combat racial discrimination in voting. Section 5, reauthorized in 2006, has helped prevent states bent on suppressing the votes of minorities from doing so, including Alabama, South Carolina, Texas and Florida. Without Section 5, those states will have great leeway in pursuing schemes to dilute the minority vote.

by Jeremy Leaming

The Obama administration is weighing in on the constitutional challenge to California’s anti-gay initiative Proposition 8. And like it did in a separate case before the Supreme Court challenging the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, the administration is advancing a call for equality.

The case, Hollingsworth v. Perry is from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which last year invalidated Proposition 8, in part, because it “served no purpose and no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians.”

The Obama administration had no obligation to weigh in, but did so on the last day to lodge briefs with the high court.

“California law provides to same-sex couples registered as domestic partners all the legal incidents of marriage, but it nonetheless denies them the designation of marriage allowed to their opposite-sex counterparts. Particularly in those circumstances, the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from marriage does not substantially further any important government interest. Proposition 8 thus violates equal protection,” the administration’s brief states.

SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston says the administration’s brief “could be read to support a right to marriage equality in every state, but it did not endorse that idea explicitly.”

Denniston continues, “What the brief endorsed is what has been called the ‘eight-state solution’ – that is, if a state already recognizes for same-sex couples all the privileges and benefits that married couples have (as in the eight states that do so through ‘civil unions’) those states must go the final step and allow those couples to get married. The argument is that it violates the Constitution’s guarantee of legal equality when both same-sex and opposite-sex couples are entitled to the same marital benefits, but only the opposite-sex couples can get married.”

The administration’s brief nonetheless provides what could also be seen as a robust call for equality stretching from coast to coast. For example, the administration argues that laws classifying lesbians and gay men should be subject to “heightened scrutiny.”

“For certain protected classes, however, heightened scrutiny enables courts to ascertain whether the government has employed the classification for a significant and proper purpose, and provides an enhanced measure of protection in circumstances where there is a greater danger that the classification results from impermissible prejudice or stereotypes. Because sexual orientation is a factor that ‘generally provides no sensible ground for different treatment,’ laws that classify based on sexual orientation should be subject to heightened scrutiny,” the brief states.