City of Lockhart v. United States

I disagree fundamentally with the Court’s view that § 5 of the Voting Rights Act permits jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to adopt new voting schemes which perpetuate that discrimination. Congress intended the pre-clearance requirement to be a powerful measure for advancing the goals of the Fifteenth Amendment, and specifically reaffirmed that intention when it reenacted the Voting *137Rights Act in 1982. By holding that § 5 forbids only electoral changes that increase discrimination, the Court reduces § 5 to a means of maintaining the status quo. Because the Court’s…