Constitutional Law

HLPR Article Examines Elections and Voting Rights Act

While the election of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president provides evidence that the nation is making progress toward healing racial divisions, there still remains ample proof of the need for an effective federal voting rights law, writes Kristen Clarke in an article for the new edition of the Harvard Law & Policy Review (HLPR), the official journal of ACS.

In 'The Obama Factor: The Impact of the 2008 Presidential Election on Future Voting Rights Act Litigation,' Clarke, the co-director of the Political Participation Group at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, explores new data on the recent presidential election in concluding that its outcome should not persuade judges from hearing cases on voting discrimination claims.

Alongside the victory of the nation's first African-American president stands significant evidence that both racial polarization and voting discrimination persist in many communities throughout this country, writes Clarke (right). The weight of this evidence is not trumped by the outcome of the 2008 election cycle alone. While this most recent presidential election suggests that, in some areas of the country, discriminatory voting patterns may not be as entrenched as in others, there is a much longer record of evidence that voting discrimination continues to stand as a significant barrier to equal political participation.

Clarke's entire article is available here. Today, ACS and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) co-hosted a forum at the National Press Club examining the role of race in the recent presidential election. Panelists included Clarke, John Payton, president and director-counsel of the NAACP LDF, Nina Perales, the Southwestern Regional Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and U.S. Rep. Melvin L. Watt. Video of the panel discussion is coming soon and will be available on the ACS Web site.  

All the new HLPR articles are available here.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on April 02, 2009 (boomark / email).