Shelby County v. Holder

Shelby County v. Holder
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 27, 2013
Decided June 25, 2013
Full case nameShelby County, Alabama, Petitioner v. Eric H. Holder, Jr., Attorney General, et al.
Docket no.12-96
Citations570 U.S. 529 (more)
133 S. Ct. 2612
186 L. Ed. 2d 651
ArgumentOral argument
Opinion announcementOpinion announcement
Case history
Prior
Subsequent
  • Remanded, 541 F. App'x 1 (D.C. Cir. 2013).
  • Motion for attorneys' fees denied, 43 F. Supp. 3d 47 (D.D.C. 2014).
  • Affirmed sub. nom., Shelby County v. Lynch, 799 F.3d 1173 (D.C. Cir. 2015).
  • Cert. denied, 577 U.S. 1119 (2016).
Questions presented
Whether Congress' decision to reauthorize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act exceeded its authority under the Fifteenth Amendment and thus violated the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the United States Constitution.
Holding
Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. § 10303) is unconstitutional; its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
MajorityRoberts, joined by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito
ConcurrenceThomas
DissentGinsburg, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. XIV, XV; Voting Rights Act of 1965

Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), is a landmark decision[1] of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and subsection (b) of Section 4, which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of racial discrimination in voting.[2][3]

On June 25, 2013, the Court ruled by a 5 to 4 vote that Section 4(b) was unconstitutional because the coverage formula was based on data over 40 years old, making it no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states.[2][3] The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction will be subject to Section 5 preclearance unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.[4]

The ruling has made it easier for state officials to engage in voter suppression.[5][6] Research shows that preclearance led to increases in minority congressional representation and minority voter turnout.[7][8][9][10] Five years after the ruling, nearly 1,000 U.S. polling places had closed, many of them in predominantly African-American counties. A 2011 study in the American Political Science Review showed that changing and reducing voting locations can reduce voter turnout.[6] There were also cuts to early voting, purges of voter rolls, and imposition of strict voter ID laws.[11][12] In response to the ruling, some states have enacted State Voting Rights Acts that include comprehensive state-level preclearance programs modeled after Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

  1. ^ Kealing, Jonathan (June 25, 2013). "U.S. Supreme Court strikes down key provision of Voting Rights Act". Public Radio International. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2013.
  2. ^ a b Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013).
  3. ^ a b "Shelby County v. Holder". The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. Retrieved July 7, 2013.
  4. ^ "Amy Howe, Details on Shelby County v. Holder: In Plain English (Case 12-399)". SCOTUSblog. June 25, 2013. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
  5. ^ Fraga, Luis Ricardo; Ramírez, Ricardo; Fraga, Bernard L. (2023). "American Democracy and Voter Suppression". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 708 (1): 227–242. doi:10.1177/00027162241232825. ISSN 0002-7162.
  6. ^ a b Vasilogambros, Matt (September 4, 2018). "Polling Places Remain a Target Ahead of November Elections". www.pewtrusts.org. Archived from the original on May 3, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2018.
  7. ^ Ang, Desmond (July 2019). "Do 40-Year-Old Facts Still Matter? Long-Run Effects of Federal Oversight under the Voting Rights Act". American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 11 (3). Nashville, Tennessee: American Economic Association: 1–53. doi:10.1257/app.20170572. ISSN 1945-7782.
  8. ^ Bernini, Andrea; Facchini, Giovanni; Testa, Cecilia (April 2023). "Race, Representation, and Local Governments in the US South: The Effect of the Voting Rights Act". Journal of Political Economy. 131 (4). Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press: 994–1056. doi:10.1086/722092. ISSN 0022-3808. S2CID 158339446.
  9. ^ Bernini, Andrea; Facchini, Giovanni; Tabellini, Marco; Testa, Cecilia (July 2023). "Black Empowerment and White Mobilization: The Effects of the Voting Rights Act". National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper 31425. doi:10.3386/w31425.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :10 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ "Discriminatory voter laws have surged in last 5 years, federal commission finds". CNN. 2018.
  12. ^ "Assessment of Minority Voting Rights Access" (PDF). U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 2018.