17066: FYI NAACP.

 

This NAACP advertisement declares: We Are—boring and uninspired…?

 

Don’t mean to sound overly nostalgic, but NAACP messages of the past seemed far more urgent and revolutionary.

16767: The Voting Wrongs Act.

MediaPost spotlighted a video titled, “Dear Young People, Don’t Vote,” by Nail Communications. Designed to motivate Millennials and Gen Zers to vote via reverse psychology, the message features elderly people encouraging young people not to vote, declaring how the older generation controls ultra-conservativism in society.

 

At least one MediaPost visitor took offense, feeling the stereotypical depiction of old folks reflected ageism and promoted divisiveness. If Carl Warner is still around, he’d likely be outraged too.

 

Another point not mentioned is the lack of diversity; that is, the video only shows White senior citizens. Did the creators deliberately presume most people of color lean towards being liberal Democrats? Were they purposely avoiding the politically incorrect territory of attaching anti-voting sentiments—even facetiously—to those who benefited from, fought for, and died over the Voting Rights Act?

 

It doesn’t help that Nail Communications appears to be a White advertising agency. Or perhaps that nails the explanation.

 

On a final note, the overall “Yes We Cancel” campaign—intended to target a younger audience—is trying too hard. In that regard, the concept is culturally clueless and deserves a 👎 vote.

 

Don’t Read This Column

 

By Joe Mandese

 

See what I did there? Using a little reverse psychology to get you to do the opposite — click through and read today’s “Red, White & Blog” — if only as an act of authoritarian defiance. Well, that’s actually the point of today’s column: using reverse psychology — or more aptly, child psychology — to get young people to vote in this year’s election.

 

As you probably already know, young Americans are notoriously loath to do so, so Providence, Rhode Island agency Nail figured out a way to hit a hammer on their heads in one of the most ingenious spots I’ve come across yet this election cycle.

 

The spot, “Dear Young People, Don’t Vote” features some crotchety elders telling them to sit this one out, because, well, “everything is fine the way it is.”

 

Forget about climate change, tax cuts for the rich, school shootings and a candidate threatening to undermine democracy — it’s old folks that run America, the spot advises young voters, recommending that they stick to tending their social media memes.

 

“Only 46% of people 18-34 years old voted in the last election,” the YouTube video’s description reminds us, adding: “So the elderly have a disproportionate influence on our politics and our country.”

 

It’s enough to make a Millennial’s blood boil, and get a Gen Zer to get off their butt.

 

At least that’s what Nail Creative Partner Alex Beckett hopes, noting that his “client is democracy.”

 

“We specifically didn’t want to have a partisan client because it felt like that would drive off these ultra-low engagement young voters we’re trying to activate,” he continues, adding: “They’re not partisan. They’re not even non-partisan. They’re anti-partisan.”

 

The spot is intended to drive young voters to a broader “Yes We Cancel” campaign consisting of a website, videos, a store and an Instagram page all built around a tongue-in-cheek homage to the Obama campaign’s iconic “Yes We Can” call to arms.

 

Now that’s what I call “cancel culture” — but you know, the good kind.

14904: BHM 2020—Voting On The Theme Of Black History Month 2020.

African Americans and the Vote is the theme for Black History Month 2020. Voting will show how great the relationship really is between the Blacks and President Donald Trump…

14832: Operation Black Vote Underscores Lack Of Black Voices In Adland.

This Operation Black Vote campaign—created by Saatchi & Saatchi UK—was described as follows:

The forthcoming election is broadly seen as one of the most important political events in generations. The campaign’s central message is that if BAME communities, and young people in general do not register to vote, others with often controversial views, will speak for them. OBV is a not for profit, non-party political organisation focussed on voter registration and getting the vote out, political mentoring and nurturing leadership. Its foundations are based on the four pillars of education, participation, representation and equality promotion.

The quotes contain controversial views and statements from politicians which insensitively address issues of race, religion, women, sexuality and climate change. These quotes are brought to life by actors in real life environments such as bars and restaurants, with the film capturing the stunned reactions of their friends.

Okay, but it should be noted that even when featuring real politicians, the White advertising agency opted to use stock photography.

It should also be noted that Black women don’t have a voice or get a vote in White advertising agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi.

12354: The Truth On LBJ And MLK…?

From The New York Times…

Depiction of Lyndon B. Johnson in ‘Selma’ Raises Hackles

By Jennifer Schuessler

Was Lyndon B. Johnson a civil rights mastermind, or a reluctant follower pulled along by activists led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

The question has long been a matter of contention, even flaring up in the 2008 presidential primary battle between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

And now, it has also come to another hard-fought political campaign, the Oscar race, once again raising the fraught question of who makes history — and who gets to write it.

The new film “Selma,” directed by Ava DuVernay, has won rave reviews and awards buzz for its depiction of the tense maneuvering surrounding the protests in that small town in March 1965, as Dr. King (played by David Oyelowo) contended with racist authorities in Alabama as well as factions inside the civil rights movement.

But it has also drawn some sharp criticism for its depiction of Johnson as a laggard on black voting rights who opposed the marches and even unleashed the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an effort to stop Dr. King’s campaign.

The charge began on Dec. 22, three days before the movie’s release, when Mark K. Updegrove, the director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, wrote an article in Politico saying that the film was trying to “bastardize one of the most hallowed chapters in the civil rights movement.” A few days later, Joseph A. Califano Jr., a former top domestic aide to Johnson, issued another salvo, in The Washington Post, accusing the filmmakers of deliberately ignoring the historical record.

The criticism of the film’s depiction of the president has come not just from Johnson loyalists, but from some historians who said they admired other aspects of the film.

“Everybody has to take license in movies like this, and it can be hard for nit-pickers like me to suspend nit-picking,” Diane McWhorter, the author of “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution,” said in an interview.

“But with the portrayal of L.B.J.,” she continued, “I kept thinking, ‘Not only is this not true, it’s the opposite of the truth.’”

Fierce debates over the historical accuracy of movies, amplified by the heat of awards season, are nothing new. In 2013, Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” was denounced as endorsing torture. Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” another best picture nominee that year, drew criticism from historians who said it promoted an outmoded “great man” view of history and ignored the crucial role of African-Americans in emancipating themselves.

The dispute over “Selma,” the first major feature film squarely about Dr. King and the rare studio offering directed by an African-American woman, may have particularly charged present-day resonances.

Julian E. Zelizer, the author of the new book “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress and the Battle for the Great Society,” said it recalled the moment in the 2008 primary when Mrs. Clinton declared that Dr. King’s dream of equality only “began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act” of 1964, prompting accusations that she was playing down Dr. King’s role as part of her own effort to best an African-American political rival.

“The debate isn’t just about L.B.J., but about how American politics works,” said Professor Zelizer, who teaches history at Princeton. “Is it a matter of powerful elected leaders, or average people who put their bodies on the line?”

The sparring over “Selma,” which is set for wide release on Jan. 9, has certainly taken on a populists-versus-establishmentarians tinge. In his op-ed article, Mr. Califano wrote that the Selma marches were “L.B.J.’s idea,” citing a transcript of a phone call two months before the marches in which Johnson urged Dr. King to generate white political support for a voting rights bill by seeking out “the worst condition that you run into” in the South and getting images of racist brutality widely circulated in the news media.

In a Twitter post on Sunday, Ms. DuVernay called the notion that Selma was Johnson’s idea “jaw dropping and offensive” to the “black citizens who made it so.” People, Ms. DuVernay added, should “interrogate history” for themselves. (A spokeswoman for Paramount Pictures, the distributor of “Selma,” said that Ms. DuVernay was not available for comment for this article.)

Gary May, a professor at the University of Delaware and the author of “Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy,” said the heightened rhetoric on both sides was unsurprising.

“Here you have the first film about King, and some people are coming in and saying, ‘The story is really about the white people,’” he said. “In historical truth, the story was really about everybody.”

Johnson has been the focus of a rehabilitation campaign among historians and others eager to burnish a legacy shadowed by the Vietnam War and by a lingering popular view of him as “a Southern racist in liberal clothing,” as Professor Zelizer put it.

Professor May, who said he had communicated informally with Ms. DuVernay over the past year after sending her a copy of his book, said that at a preview screening for invited guests in November, some audience members hissed when Johnson appeared.

“On balance, the film is a positive force,” he said. But in the Johnson scenes, he said, “there is a problem with the tone.”

Some civil rights historians, while questioning Mr. Califano’s wording, agreed with his broader point that Johnson and Dr. King were partners, not adversaries.

“Selma was not Johnson’s idea, but he was happy that King was out there mounting a voting rights campaign,” said David J. Garrow, the author of “Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,” who has not yet seen the movie.

The movie’s depiction of Johnson’s attitude toward F.B.I. surveillance of Dr. King’s personal life, which began during the Kennedy administration, is particularly problematic, several historians said.

In an early scene, Johnson seems disgusted by J. Edgar Hoover’s suggestion that Dr. King — “a political and moral degenerate,” Hoover says — be taken down. But later the president, angered by Dr. King’s plans in Selma, asks to get Hoover on the phone. Soon after, Coretta Scott King is shown listening to a tape of anonymous threats, followed by the sounds of Dr. King moaning with a lover.

In fact, the tape, which Mrs. King listened to in January 1965, had been recorded and sent to the headquarters of Dr. King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, in late 1964 by the bureau’s intelligence division, and had no direct connection to Selma or to Johnson, Mr. Garrow said.

“If the movie suggests L.B.J. had anything to do with the tape, that’s truly vile and a real historical crime against L.B.J.,” he said.

It is true, historians say, that Johnson was hesitant to introduce a voting rights bill so soon after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. But Professor May noted that on Dec. 14, 1964, Johnson directed his attorney general, Nicholas Katzenbach, to begin drafting such a bill — a fact the film does not mention, he said.

Also omitted, Professor Zelizer said, is the fact that when the Selma marches began, Katzenbach was already negotiating secretly with members of Congress over the eventual bill.

“They obviously wanted to create a villain, and really miss who Lyndon Johnson was,” he said.

The movie, Professor Zelizer said, does a powerful job of depicting the courage of the activists, and the tactical genius of Dr. King. And it gets one thing absolutely right: the crucial role of the movement in pushing Johnson to act more quickly than he thought was possible.

“The real story wasn’t about a president who didn’t want voting rights,” he said. “It was about a president who couldn’t get them through. And it was the civil rights movement that made that possible.”

11243: Voting On Voting Rights Act.

From The New York Daily News…

Supreme Court strikes down part of Voting Rights Act

The justices said in 5-4 vote that the law Congress most recently renewed in 2006 relies on 40-year-old data that does not reflect racial progress and changes in U.S. society.

By James Warren / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court threw out key elements of the Voting Rights Act Tuesday, telling Congress to revise the critical formula by which one determines if local voting laws are illegal.

The 5-4 decision leaves in distinct limbo the historic 1965 law that opened the voting booth to millions of mostly African-Americans voters who had been shafted, even as it maintains its ruling “in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting.”

The ruling means that even as the court keeps in place the theoretically critical section of the law, Section 5, the section would seem to have little practical impact now unless Congress will pass a new provision making clear which states and localities it would actually cover.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problems speaks to currents conditions.”

Somewhat predictably, Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined Roberts. The minority consisted by Justice Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

President Obama, in a statement Tuesday, said he was “deeply disappointed” with the decision and called on Congress to pass new legislation to guarantee voting rights.

“As a nation, we’ve made a great deal of progress towards guaranteeing every American the right to vote. But, as the Supreme Court recognized, voting discrimination still exists,” Obama said. “And while today’s decision is a setback, it doesn’t represent the end of our efforts to end voting discrimination.”

The 1965 Voting Rights act was a major achievement by President Lyndon B. Johnson and came amid clear evidence of rampant attempts to keep blacks away from the polls, especially in the south, by setting up unfair demands, like literacy tests, before they could get a ballot.

There are portions of 15 states that now must get approval from the Justice Department before they alter either the shape of their election districts or regulations involving voting, including the locations where citizens vote.

The department has frequently raised objections to procedures in those areas and the key provision in the law has been extended several times. It was last extended in 2006, to go through the year 2031, after an extension was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by then-President George W. Bush.

But many states and local governments have long been upset with what they consider the needless expense and time spent trying to comply with the critical preclearance process.

They have also maintained that the original formula used to make decisions is outdated in how it uses voter registration and turnout data, among other metrics. They also point to increasing voter registration among minorities, notably blacks, as well as the election of President Obama as evidence that the act is outlived its usefulness.

They clearly found a sympathetic ear in Roberts, who wrote:

“In 1965, the states could be divided into two groups: those with a recent history of voting tests and low voter registration and turnout, and those without those characteristics. Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.”

While the decision was not necessarily a surprise, it remains “fairly shocking that the court would in effect strike down one of the two most important pillars of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most successful civil rights statutes ever passed by Congress,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos of the University of Chicago Law School.

“I think they made a real mistake,” he said. “Now, what happens in the parts of the country formally protected by this provision, mostly the Deep South?”

He would not predict that the decision means that jurisdictions will now engage in racial discrimination. But, he said, other legal ways of halting such discrimination are simply not as effective as what the court struck down.

11003: Arguing The Voting Rights Act.

From The New York Times…

Voting Rights Act Is Challenged as Cure the South Has Outgrown

By Adam Liptak

EVERGREEN, Ala. — Jerome Gray, a 74-year-old black man, has voted in every election since 1974 in this verdant little outpost of some 4,000 people halfway between Mobile and Montgomery. Casting a ballot, he said, is a way to honor the legacy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a civil rights landmark born from a bloody confrontation 70 miles north of here, in Selma.

The franchise remains fragile in Evergreen, Mr. Gray said. Last summer, he was kicked off the voting rolls by a clerk who had improperly culled the list based on utility records.

A three-judge federal court in Mobile barred the city from using the new voting list, invoking Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires many state and local governments, mostly in the South, to obtain permission from the Justice Department or from a federal court in Washington before making changes that affect voting.

That provision is also at the heart of one of the marquee cases of the Supreme Court’s term, Shelby County v. Holder, No. 12-96, which will be argued on Feb. 27. It was brought by Shelby County, near Birmingham, and it contends that the provision has outlived its purpose of protecting minority voters in an era when a black man has been re-elected to the presidency.

The Voting Rights Act was a triumph of the civil rights movement. It was a response, the Supreme Court said in upholding it in 1966, to “an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution.”

Congress was entitled, the court went on, “to limit its attention to the geographic areas where immediate action seemed necessary.” Lawmakers chose the areas to be covered based on a formula that considered whether they had used devices to discourage voting, like literacy tests, and data from the 1964 election.

The court in Mobile this month said the case before it, concerning Evergreen, was simple: because the city had not obtained preclearance from federal authorities, it could not revise its voting list using utility records. Nor could it use a municipal redistricting plan enacted by the City Council that had concentrated black voters, who are in the majority, into just two of the five districts, limiting black voting power.

It is not clear when the municipal election, originally scheduled for last August, will be held.

A lawyer for Evergreen, James H. Anderson, said the ruling was justified. “The way the voter list was recomposed was improper,” he said. He added that the redistricting plan “could possibly be adopted by the Justice Department, but we need to tweak it a little bit.” In a court filing on Feb. 11, the city announced that it would create a third majority-black district “to have a total black population in the vicinity of 65 percent.”

Critics of the Section 5 preclearance requirement call it an unwarranted and discriminatory federal intrusion on state sovereignty and a badge of shame for the affected jurisdictions that is no longer justified.

But Mr. Anderson said he welcomed the process, to a point. “I think it plays a very valuable role, and I think we need it,” he said. “Personally, I think we need it nationwide.”

The problem, he said, is that the provision applies in only some parts of the country. “I think it’s discriminatory because it picks on us Southerners,” he said.

Congress has repeatedly renewed the law, and for a while it used fresher data with each renewal. But when Congress renewed the law for 25 years in 2006, it made no changes to the list of jurisdictions covered by Section 5 and used data from the 1972 election as a baseline.

The law applies to nine states — Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia — and to scores of counties and municipalities in other states.

Read the full story here.

10871: Black Voters Showing Up.

From The Chicago Tribune…

Black voter turnout may have surpassed whites for the first time

By David Lauter

Despite often-voiced concerns about the effect of voter identification laws, black voter turnout remained high in 2012 and, for the first time, may have topped the rate for whites, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center.

Four years ago, the rate of black voter turnout almost equaled that of whites, continuing a trend of a steady increase in black turnout rates that began in 1996. This year, with white turnout appearing to have dropped, black turnout seems very likely to have exceeded the white level, although definitive figures won’t be available until the Census Bureau reports in a few months.

A higher turnout rate among blacks than whites would mark an historic milestone given America’s long history of disenfranchising blacks. Blacks were effectively barred from polls in many states until after passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965.


In the run-up to this year’s presidential election, a number of states with Republican-majority legislatures passed laws limiting voting hours, curtailing voter registration efforts or requiring voters to show identification. Many black leaders said those laws would disproportionately hurt elderly, poor and minority voters and accused Republicans of running a campaign of “voter suppression.”


Republicans said the measures were needed to combat voter fraud. In a few states, Republican legislative leaders explicitly said they hoped the measures would hurt Democratic candidates or reduce the “urban” vote.

Courts blocked some of those laws, and in the end they may have backfired as black organizations used “voter suppression” as a rallying cry. The perception that “people don’t want you to vote” motivated many blacks, particularly young people, to turn out, said Chanelle Hardy, executive director of the National Urban League. “It was huge,” she said during a recent panel discussion.

Overall, about 60% of the Americans eligible to register actually voted in 2012, according to data compiled by Michael McDonald of George Mason University. That would be about three points below the 2008 turnout, with much of the decline coming among white voters. The precise final number won’t be known until New York state completes its vote count, which has been slowed by the after-effects of Hurricane Sandy.

The number of voters from minority groups rose in November’s election, a key factor in President Obama’s reelection. But those numbers went up for disparate reasons. Among Latinos and Asians, population growth has steadily driven up the number of voters. Turnout rates also have gone up, but remain significantly lower than those of the population as a whole. The nation’s black population, by contrast, has remained steady, but the number of black voters has continued to go up because of higher turnout rates. Blacks make up about 12% of the U.S. population but were 13% of the voter turnout, according to exit polling. Whites made up about 71% of the voter-eligible population and 72% of the turnout, the exit poll indicated.

The large black turnout was critical to Obama’s victory in several swing states, according to a recent analysis by Ruy Texeira and John Halpin of the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank. Their analysis pointed to Ohio, in particular, as a state in which an increase in the black share of the vote proved decisive.

6947: Minorities Made Their Votes Count.

From The New York Times…

2008 Surge in Black Voters Nearly Erased Racial Gap

By Sam Roberts

In last year’s presidential election, younger blacks voted in greater proportions than whites for the first time and black women turned out at a higher rate than any other racial, ethnic and gender group, a census analysis released Monday confirmed.

As a result, in the election that produced the nation’s first black president, the historic gap between black and white voter participation rates over all virtually evaporated.

The Census Bureau’s survey also found striking contrasts in why people said they did not vote. More than three times as many whites as blacks said they did not like the candidates or campaign issues.

Over all, 18 percent of nonvoters said they were too busy, 15 percent said they were prevented because of an illness or disability and 13 percent each said they were not interested or did not like the candidates or issues.

Total turnout in 2008 was about the same as it was in 2004, about 64 percent of voting age citizens.

But with Barack Obama on the ballot, the makeup of the 131 million who voted last year was markedly different. While the number of non-Hispanic white voters remained roughly the same, 2 million more blacks, 2 million more Latinos and 600,000 more Asians turned out. Compared with 2004, the voting rate for black, Asian and Hispanic voters increased by about four percentage points. The rate for whites declined by one percentage point.

As a result, according to an analysis by William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, whites declined to 76 percent of all voters in 2008, from 79 percent in 2004.

Turnout varied widely by state, from a high of 75 percent in Minnesota to 52 percent in Utah.

In a number of states, including Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and South Carolina, turnout among blacks surpassed 70 percent.

In 2004, according to the census, barely 60 percent of eligible blacks voted. In 2008, nearly 65 percent did (as did 66 percent of white voting-age citizens).

But one of the biggest changes was the gap between black and white participation. In 2004, the rate of black voter registration was 10 percentage points below that of whites. Last year, it narrowed to four percentage points.

Of the 206 million citizens 18 and older, 71 percent were registered to vote. Among those who were registered, 90 percent voted in 2008.

Thom File, a voting analyst with the Census Bureau, said the turnout among blacks ages 18 to 24 increased 8 percent from 2004, to 55 percent. That helped drive the overall turnout in that group to 49 percent, still lower than among older eligible voters.

Among voters 18 to 24 and 25 to 44, blacks voted at a higher rate than whites in 2008.

Like an analysis earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, the latest findings were drawn from census surveys and interviews.

“In 2008 we obviously had a historic candidacy,” said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew center. “That’s certainly a plausible explanation for the spike in African-American turnout. The question was, Would other minorities vote for this minority? Not only did he get a big vote, but he got a big turnout.”

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.

5531: Backing The Voting Rights Act.

From The Associated Press…

Court: Voting Rights Act provision constitutional

By Associated Press

A federal court ruled Friday that a key component of the Voting Rights Act is constitutional, rejecting a challenge from a city utility board in Texas.

Under the landmark law, which Congress extended in 2006 for another 25 years, states and towns with histories of racial discrimination must get Justice Department or court approval before making any changes to the way elections are conducted. The law was intended to keep state and local governments from passing laws making it harder for minorities to vote.

Shortly after Congress extended the law, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One, a government board formed to provide local services to about 3,500 people, sued. The board asked the court to exempt it from the law and said Congress had no constitutional right to pass a bill that tried to remedy past discrimination.

A three-judge panel in Washington rejected the case. The court ruled that the utility board didn’t qualify as a “political subdivision” and could not be exempted from the law. It also ruled that racial discrimination in voting persists and that Congress acted appropriately when it extended the law.

Under the law, challenges go before a single court made up of district and appellate judges. Any appeal would go directly to the Supreme Court.