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Full-Text Articles in Law
Unmistakably Clear: Human Rights, The Right To Representation, And Remedial Voting Rights Of People Of Color, Matthew H. Charity
Unmistakably Clear: Human Rights, The Right To Representation, And Remedial Voting Rights Of People Of Color, Matthew H. Charity
Faculty Scholarship
The Author critiques the Supreme Court’s analysis in its Shelby County v. Holder decision, which found the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional by applying a disparate treatment analysis to how States were treated under the Act. Such a reading of the Act makes a number of tacit and explicit assumptions with regard to the choice by the Federal Government and by the States of whose rights governmental actors must protect. The Court reached its conclusion by decontextualizing the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act from decolonization and post-World War II expressions of human rights, a …
Race, Federalism, And Voting Rights, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
Race, Federalism, And Voting Rights, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer
Faculty Scholarship
In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court struck down an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, section 4, on federalism grounds. The Court argued that Congress no longer had the power to enact section 4 because of the “federalism costs” imposed by the Act and because the Act violated "basic principles" of federalism. Unfortunately, the Court failed to articulate the costs to federalism imposed by the Act, much less conduct a cost-benefit analysis in order to determine whether the benefits of the Act outweighed its costs. Moreover, the Court failed to discuss whether the Reconstruction Amendments ought to matter …