WASHINGTON (AP) – Eight years after taking the heart out of a benchmark voting rights law, the Supreme Court is considering putting new limits on efforts to combat racial discrimination in voting.
Judges are studying a case about Arizona’s restrictions on ballot collection and another policy that penalizes voters who vote in a wrong venue.
High court consideration occurs as Republican officials in the state and across the country they have proposed more than 150 measures, following last year’s election, to restrict access to voting that, according to civil rights groups, would disproportionately affect black and Hispanic voters.
A broad Supreme Court ruling would make it difficult to fight these efforts in the courts. The arguments are raised for Tuesday over the phone, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It would be taking out one of the great tools, in fact, the main tool we have now, to protect voters from racial discrimination,” said Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Justice Center’s voting rights and election program. .
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, said the high court case was about voting integrity and not discrimination. “It’s about protecting the franchise, not depriving anyone of their rights,” Brnovich said, arguing the case on Tuesday.
President Joe Biden narrowly defeated Arizona last year, and since 2018, the state has elected two Democratic senators.
Judges will review an appeals court ruling against a 2016 Arizona law that limits who can return early ballot boxes to another person and against a separate state policy of discarding ballot boxes if a voter goes to the wrong venue.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ballot collection law and state policy discriminate against minority voters in violation of the Federal Voting Rights Act and that the law also violates the Constitution.
The Voting Rights Act, first enacted in 1965, was extremely effective against discrimination at the polls because it required state and local governments with a history of discrimination, including Arizona, to obtain early approval from the Department of Labor. Justice or a federal court before making any changes to the election.
In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled between 5 and 4 that the part of the law known as Section 5 could no longer be applied because the population formula for determining which states were covered had not been updated to take account of progress. racial.
Congress “must identify those jurisdictions to be distinguished on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote to a Conservative majority. “He can’t just rely on the past.”
Democrats in Congress will try to reactivate the early voting provision of the Bill of Rights Act. John Lewis ’Bill of Rights Advancement Act failed in the last Congress, when Republicans controlled the Senate and President Donald Trump was in the White House.
But another part of the law, section 2, applies nationwide and still prohibits discrimination in voting on the grounds. Civil rights groups and voters alleging racial bias should go to court and prove their case, either by showing intentional discrimination in passing a law or that the results of the law fall more on minorities.
The new Supreme Court case mainly concerns how plaintiffs can demonstrate discrimination based on the results of the law.
The arguments are taking place in the context of the 2020 elections, in which there was a massive increase in early voting and postal voting due to the pandemic. Trump and his Republican supporters challenged the election results by advancing fraud claims that were generally rejected by state and federal courts.
But many Republicans continue to question the outcome of the election, despite the lack of evidence. Elected Republican Party officials have responded by proposing to restrict early voting and mail voting, as well as tighten voter identification laws.
The contested Arizona provisions remained in effect in 2020 because the case was still making its way to court.
But Brnovich said last year’s vote is another reason why judges should side with the state. “I think part of the 2020 lesson was that when people don’t believe that elections have integrity or that their vote is protected, that will lead to undermining public confidence in the system,” Brnovich said.
Civil rights groups said the court should not use this case to hinder the rooting of racial discrimination, which “still poses a unique threat to our democracy,” as the Human Rights Fund briefly stated. NAACP Legal Defense and Education.
About 75 companies, including PayPal, Levi Strauss and Impossible Foods, joined in a writ urging the court to “fully preserve the Voting Rights Act.”
The Justice Department will not be part of Tuesday’s arguments, a rarity in a voting rights case.
The Trump administration supported Arizona. The Biden administration, in a somewhat cryptic letter to the court, said this month that it believed “no Arizona measure violates the Section 2 results test,” but it doesn’t like the way its predecessor analyzed the problems.
The new administration’s suggestion could give the court a narrow way to maintain Arizona’s provisions without making significant changes to the vote discrimination law.
A decision is expected in early summer.