Louisiana v. Callais · ¶134
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 represented Congress's most determined effort to stop the cycle. Selma's Bloody Sunday had galvanized the Nation to finally confront racial disfranchisement. Now Congress enacted legislation making use of a double-barreled approach to ensure the Fifteenth Amendment's enforcement. Section 5 of the Act required that States or localities with a history of racial voter suppression obtain Department of Justice approval before implementing new voting districts or rules. An administrative review process thus would impede—at least, until this Court in Shelby County stopped it—the ever-inventive efforts of certain jurisdictions to deny or minimize minority voting. Meantime, Section 2 provided judicial recourse for victims of voting discrimination in all jurisdictions. That provision prohibited any election rule or practice that would “deny or abridge” the right to…Read in context ›
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