Holder eviscerating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the critical mechanism that required jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to obtain advance approval for voting changes - known as “pre-clearance ” - from the Justice Department. In 2013, Roberts wrote the 5-to-4 majority opinion in Shelby County v. Since his service as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration, Roberts had been a longtime antagonist of a broad reading of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which he saw as an affront to states’ rights and an unnecessary artifact of what he views as a bygone era of explicit discrimination. This time, in a case about voting rights, the conservatives were united, with Roberts fully on board. Democratic National Committee, decided on the last day of the term.
This much was clear in the smoking ruins of the Voting Rights Act: A court that could do this could do anything.īut if one case from the 2020 term epitomized the brazenness of the new majority, and signaled more to come, it was Brnovich v.
