6870: Voting Rights Act Intact.

From The Chicago Tribune…

Supreme Court narrows but preserves Voting Rights Act
The justices leave Section 5 safeguards intact while allowing municipalities with a clean record to ‘bail out.’ Clarence Thomas dissents, saying he would strike down the provision.

By David G. Savage
Reporting from Washington

The historic Voting Rights Act—the 1965 law that ended a century of racial discrimination at the ballot box and gave blacks a political voice across the South—survived a strong challenge at the Supreme Court on Monday as justices pulled back from a widely anticipated decision to strike down a key part of the law as outdated and unfair to today’s South.

Instead, the justices agreed to narrow the law’s impact by allowing municipalities with a clean record to seek an exemption.

Though the court sided with the Texas water district that brought the case, its 8-1 decision preserved the core of the Voting Rights Act, including its special scrutiny for any changes in election rules by Southern states.

The ruling also protected the Roberts court from charges of conservative “judicial activism” in its refusal to tamper with an act of Congress, a often sensitive procedure fraught with political risk.

Monday’s decision, considered among the most important of the term, came as a surprise and a relief to civil rights advocates.

“This is a Pyrrhic victory for those who were behind bringing this case,” said Jon Greenbaum, legal director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “We are glad that … the Voting Rights Act remains intact to protect the rights of voters.”

Civil rights lawyers and liberal activists were prepared to denounce Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s conservatives had they struck down one of the landmark laws of the civil rights era.

Read the full story here.