Constitutional Law

High Court Limits Voting Rights Act; Dismisses Cases Over Gun Makers' Liability

The U.S. Supreme Court today limited the reach of the Voting Rights Act. In a 5-4 ruling, the high court said the voting rights law does not require lawmakers to fashion new voting districts where the minority population is less than 50 percent of the total population. The Associated Press reported that the decision in Bartlett v. Strickland 'could make it harder for southern Democrats to draw friendly boundaries after the 2010 Census.' SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston noted that Kennedy's 'plurality opinion did say that, if state legislatures wished to create a district when a minority group would have less than 50 percent majority, federal law does not forbid that. Still Kennedy went on, the Court was not saying that legislatures could pass a law that would ‘entrench' a majority district in which minorities dominate; that would raise constitutional problems, the opinion said.'

The majority opinion upheld a 2007 North Carolina Supreme Court decision that invalidated a district created by the legislature in which blacks made up only about 39 percent of voters.   Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the justices would avoid 'serious constitutional concerns under the Equal Protection Clause' in the face of any doubt that might exist over the federal voting rights law's majority-minority rule upheld by the majority. Citing a 1989 high court case, Richmond v. J.A. Croson, Kennedy noted that, 'Of course, the ‘moral imperative of racial neutrality is the driving force of the Equal Protection Clause,' and racial classifications are permitted only ‘as a last resort. Racial classifications with respect to voting carry particular dangers. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters – a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire.''

Kennedy, citing precedent, continued that if the court were to interpret the voting rights law 'to require crossover districts throughout the Nation, ‘it would unnecessarily infuse race into virtually every redistricting, raising serious constitutional questions.''

Writing in dissent, Justice David Souter, said, 'In the plurality's view, only a district with a minority population making up 50% or more of the citizen voting age population (CVAP) can provide a remedy to minority voters lacking an opportunity to ‘elect representatives of their choice.' This is incorrect as a factual matter if the statutory phrase is given its natural meaning; minority voters in districts with minority populations under 50% routinely ‘elect representatives of their choice.' The effects of the plurality's unwillingness to face this fact are disturbing by any measure and flatly at odds with the obvious purpose of the Act. If districts with minority populations under 50% can never count as minority-opportunity districts to remedy a violation of the States' obligation to provide equal protection opportunity [under the act], States will be required under the plurality's rule to pack black voters into additional majority-minority districts, contracting the number of districts where racial minorities are having success in transcending racial divisions in securing their preferred representation.'

The Supreme Court also issued the following decisions:

• In Vaden v. Discover Bank, the justices ruled on the Federal Arbitration ACT (FAA), saying that an entity seeking arbitration can ask a federal court to take the case only if it involves a controversy under federal law. Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that a federal court does not have jurisdiction to compel arbitration over a portion of a complaint whose overriding controversy is not within the court's purview. SCOTUSblog noted that the decision came in a 'dispute over a claimed failure of a consumer to pay a credit card balance.' The court's decision is available here.
• The Court by a 7-2 vote overturned a Vermont Supreme Court's decision vacating a criminal conviction on the grounds that the convict had been denied his right to a speedy trial. Writing for the majority in Vermont v. Brillon, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, 'The Vermont Supreme Court erred in attributing to the State delays caused by ‘the failure of several assigned counsel … to move his case forward.' Ginsburg continued, 'An assigned counsel's failure ‘to move the case forward' does not warrant attribution of delay to the State. Contrary to the Vermont Supreme Court's analysis, assigned counsel generally are not state actors for purposes of a speedy-trial claim.' The Court's opinion is available here.
•  In a unanimous opinion, the high court invalidated a federal Special Master's Report on what to a pay expert witness in a federal court proceeding. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the Court in Kansas v. Colorado, concluded that a $40 per day fee for witness in regular court proceedings also applies in cases 'brought under our original jurisdiction ….' The decision is available here.

The Supreme Court today also rejected lawsuits seeking to hold gun makers responsible for firearms that end up in illegal markets. Without comment, the justices rejected New York v. Beretta and Lawson v. Beretta, where New York City had sought a court order forcing gun makers to more closely monitor dealers who sell guns later used to commit crimes, The Associated Press reported. The Court's action allows to stand a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that federal law shields gun manufacturers from such lawsuits.

The justices granted certiorari in Jones v. Harris Associates, involving a 7th U.S. Circuit Court decision on an Investment Company Act's decision regarding fees in an investment adviser dispute. See SCOTUSblog for more information about the case here.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on March 09, 2009 (boomark / email).