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After Shelby County: Getting Section 2 Of The Vra To Do The Work Of Section 5, Christopher Elmendorf, Douglas Spencer
After Shelby County: Getting Section 2 Of The Vra To Do The Work Of Section 5, Christopher Elmendorf, Douglas Spencer
Christopher S. Elmendorf
Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an effective, low-cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, Section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumbersome and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take effect. This paper argues that the courts, in partnership with the Department of Justice, could reform Section 2 so that it fills much of the gap left by the Supreme Court’s evisceration of Section …
After Shelby County: Getting Section 2 Of The Vra To Do The Work Of Section 5, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer
After Shelby County: Getting Section 2 Of The Vra To Do The Work Of Section 5, Christopher S. Elmendorf, Douglas M. Spencer
Christopher S. Elmendorf
Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an effective, low-cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, Section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumbersome and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take effect. This paper argues that the courts, in partnership with the Department of Justice, could reform Section 2 so that it fills much of the gap left by the Supreme Court’s evisceration of Section …
Revitalizing Section 2, Christopher Elmendorf
Revitalizing Section 2, Christopher Elmendorf
Christopher S. Elmendorf
This article develops a fresh account of the meaning and constitutional function of Section 2, the Voting Rights Act’s core provision of nationwide application, which has long been portrayed as conceptually opaque, counterproductive in effect, and quite possibly unconstitutional. Section 2 on my account delegates authority to the courts to develop a common law of racially fair elections, anchored by certain substantive and evidentiary norms, as well as norms about legal change. The central substantive norm is that injuries within the meaning of Section 2 only arise when electoral inequalities owe to race-biased decisionmaking by majority-group actors, whether public or …