Voting Rights Act

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Supremes Start Monday With Focus on Civil Rights

Challenge to college affirmative action rules is on the docket

(Newser) - The new Supreme Court term starts Monday, and one of the most important cases the court hears could be the one brought by a white woman against the University of Texas . Abigail Fisher says she was rejected while minority students with lesser academic qualifications were admitted, the Washington Post reports....

Texas Voting Maps Discriminate: US Court

Victory for minority activists, but state plans to appeal

(Newser) - A federal court says Texas' new voting maps, redrawn by a Republican legislature, violate the Voting Rights Act. They contain signs of discrimination against minorities, judges said in a 154-page opinion. "The three-judge panel unanimously found intentional discrimination across the state. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about...

Court Strikes Down Florida Early Voting Law

Court rules that it discriminates against minorities

(Newser) - A federal court yesterday ruled that a new Florida law restricting early voting would not be implemented in the five historically black districts covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 5 of the Act allows the government to review election laws in places with a history of racial...

Justice Dept. Strikes Down Texas Voter ID Law

Obama administration says it discriminates against Hispanics

(Newser) - The Obama administration has stepped in to block a controversial Texas law requiring voters to have a special ID card, on the grounds that it discriminates against minorities, particularly Hispanics. The Justice Department concluded that there was little evidence of voter fraud that would justify the law, and that it...

Supreme Court Axes Texas Electoral Map

They say judge strayed too far from legislature's vision

(Newser) - The Supreme Court threw out a federal court's draft of a Texas electoral map, saying it strayed too far from the one drawn by the state's Republican legislature. The decision, which was issued by the court as a whole, rather than signed by an individual justice, is a...

Bush Enjoys Cheney's Attacks
 Bush Enjoys Cheney's Attacks 
Feb 26, 2010 1:04 PM CST

Bush Enjoys Cheney's Attacks

Ex-president says he won't personally make trouble for Obama

(Newser) - George W. Bush today offered his first public endorsement of Dick Cheney’s repeated attacks on President Obama. “I’m glad Cheney is out there,” Bush declared at a reunion breakfast for administration alumni. But he said he would personally continue avoiding the spotlight. “I didn't like...

Roberts Labors to Bring Divided Court Together
Roberts Labors to Bring Divided Court Together
ANALYSIS
Jun 29, 2009 7:35 AM CDT

Roberts Labors to Bring Divided Court Together

Chief scores 2 big 8-1 decisions last week, but Supremes still split

(Newser) - John Roberts told the Senate in 2005 that the Supreme Court was too polarized, and as chief justice he promised to encourage harmony between the court's left and right blocs. Last week he delivered, with two 8-1 decisions on the Voting Rights Act and the strip-search of a 13-year-old girl....

Court Will Quash Key Voting Act Provision—Next Time

(Newser) - Today’ non-decision by the Supreme Court on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is actually a stern repudiation, Tom Goldstein writes for SCOTUSblog. Reading between the lines, Goldstein surmises that the court will strike down Section 5 when the next challenge comes if Congress does not significantly alter it...

Supreme Court Sidesteps Major Voting-Rights Ruling

(Newser) - The Supreme Court ruled narrowly today in a challenge to the Voting Rights Act, exempting a small Texas district from a key provision of the law, but side-stepping the larger constitutional issue. The act requires Southern areas with a history of discrimination to get advance federal approval before changing election...

Tiny Town's Move May Redefine Voting Rights Act

Provision in 1965 act prevents moving polling station

(Newser) - A Supreme Court case may soon bring about a momentous change in the nation's voting laws, all because a Texas town of 3,500 moved a polling station three blocks, the Wall Street Journal reports. A local official made the switch to a more convenient location, galled that he needed...

Supreme Court Limits Power of Voting Rights Act

(Newser) - The Supreme Court ruled today that a part of the Voting Rights Act aimed at helping minorities elect their preferred candidates only applies in electoral districts where minorities make up more than half the population, the AP reports. The decision could make it harder for some minority candidates to win...

High Court to Hear Challenge to Voting Rights Act

Provision forcing local governments, mainly in South, to clear changes with feds at issue

(Newser) - The US Supreme Court agreed today to hear a case that challenges a central section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act designed to protect minority voters in discriminatory districts, the New York Times reports. Section 5 of the law, which forces many Southern states and select districts elsewhere to get...

An Obama Win Would Belong to LBJ
An Obama
Win Would Belong to LBJ
OPINION
Nov 4, 2008 12:02 PM CST

An Obama Win Would Belong to LBJ

Run is confirmation of slow change since Civil Rights Act

(Newser) - Unless the polls are wrong, the winner of today’s election is clear: Lyndon Baines Johnson. “We have lost the South for a generation,” Johnson said when he signed the Civil Rights Act. Well, “for that generation, time’s up,” Richard Cohen writes in the Washington ...

After 43 Years, LBJ's Dream Is Realized Tonight
After 43 Years, LBJ's Dream Is Realized Tonight
OPINION
Aug 28, 2008 10:12 AM CDT

After 43 Years, LBJ's Dream Is Realized Tonight

Voting Rights Act paved the way for Obama's candidacy, writes Caro

(Newser) - As Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination tonight, author Robert A. Caro will be remembering another speech: Lyndon Johnson's 1965 address to Congress urging the passage of the Voting Rights Act. In that speech, which reduced Martin Luther King to tears, LBJ "adopted the great anthem of the civil...

Some Blacks Think Obama Could Threaten Progress

Experts fear success could close discussion

(Newser) - Despite being a landmark in black American history, Barack Obama’s pending nomination could stall civil rights progress, some blacks say, because his success could fuel an argument that racial divisions have been healed, the New York Times reports. The danger is “that we declare victory,” a sociologist...

Prosecutors Reopen Civil Rights Case

Alabama indicts ex-state trooper in 1965 murder

(Newser) - Alabama prosecutors have reopened a decades-old murder case that helped spark the seminal Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. James Bonard Fowler, 73, a former state trooper, turned himself in yesterday after being indicted the 1965 murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson, whom prosecutors say he...

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