The Voting Rights Act in winter: the death of a superstatute

The Voting Rights Act (VRA), the most successful civil rights statute in American history, is dying. In the recent Shelby County decision, the US Supreme Court signaled that the anti-discrimination model, long understood as the basis for the VRA as originally enacted, is no longer the best way to un...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Iowa law review 2015-05, Vol.100 (4), p.1389
Main Authors: Charles, Guy-Uriel E, Fuentes-Rohwer, Luis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Activists
Analysis
Attorneys general
Civil rights
Civil rights movements
Consensus (Social sciences)
Evaluation
Federal legislation
Joint products
Laws, regulations and rules
Political activism
Politics
Provisions
Public policy
Race discrimination
Racial discrimination
Remedies
Voting rights
Voting Rights Act
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Summary:The Voting Rights Act (VRA), the most successful civil rights statute in American history, is dying. In the recent Shelby County decision, the US Supreme Court signaled that the anti-discrimination model, long understood as the basis for the VRA as originally enacted, is no longer the best way to understand today's voting rights questions. As a result, voting rights activists need to face up to the fact that voting rights law and policy are at a critical moment of transition. In this Article, the authors argue that the VRA is dying because the consensus over the existence and persistence of racial discrimination in voting has dissolved. From this premise, they outline three paths for the future of voting rights policy: 1. rebuilding a new consensus over the racial discrimination model; 2. forging a new consensus over what they call an autonomy model; or 3. reconceiving voting rights in universal terms.
ISSN:0021-0552