You go Holder! Yes!

Preclearance requirement sought for Texas on voting

The Obama administration, seeking to salvage significant power to stop racial discrimination in voting even after a major defeat in the Supreme Court, will be asking federal courts to put the state of Texas under a continuing duty to get official permission in Washington for any changes it wants to make in its election laws or methods. Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed that plan Thursday in a speech to the annual meeting of the Urban League, in Philadelphia.

Holder said the Justice Department will ask a federal district court in Texas to apply the “preclearance” requirement under the 1965 Voting Rights Act to Texas. That could only be done now, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last month in Shelby County v. Holder, by having a court apply the so-called “bail-in” provision of the 1965 law’s Section 3. That provision was left intact by the Supreme Court.

Here is the Holder statement on the Section 3 issue:

“Today I am announcing that the Justice Department will ask a federal court in Texas to subject the State of Texas to a preclearance regime similar to the one required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. This request to ‘bail in’ the state – and require it to obtain ‘pre-approval’ from either the Department or a federal court before implementing future voting changes – is available under the Voting Rights Act when intentional voting discrimination is found. Based on the evidence of intentional racial discrimination that was presented last year in the redistricting case, Texas v. Holder – as well as the history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities that the Supreme Court itself has recognized – we believe that the State of Texas should be required to go through a preclearance process whenever it changes its voting laws and practices.”

via Preclearance requirement sought for Texas on voting : SCOTUSblog.