Opinion ID: 2752180
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Shelby County

Text: Shelby County considered the continuing constitutionality of §§ 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. Section 4 set forth a coverage formula that identified jurisdictions with a history of voter discrimination, and § 5 required those jurisdictions to obtain preclearance for any change in voting procedures by proving that the change had neither 'the purpose [nor] the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on -30- account of race or color.' Id. at 2618–20 (alteration in original). In the years after the VRA's passage, Congress repeatedly re-authorized the Act (most recently in 2006), but it made no changes to § 4's coverage formula after 1975. Id. at 2620–21. The Shelby County Court held that § 4's coverage formula unconstitutionally infringed the equal sovereignty of the states. Id. at 2623–31. The majority explained that, when a statute authorizes federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking, . . . and represents an extraordinary departure from the traditional course of relations between the States and the Federal Government, id. at 2624 (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted), any 'disparate geographic coverage' must be 'sufficiently related to the problem that it targets.' Id. at 2627 (quoting Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193, 203 (2009)).12 The Court found that § 4's coverage 12 Shelby County relied primarily on two cases for its discussion of the equal sovereignty doctrine: Coyle v. Smith, 221 U.S. 559 (1911), and Northwest Austin. Coyle held that when a new state is admitted into the Union, it is so admitted with all of the powers of sovereignty and jurisdiction which pertain to the original states, and that such powers may not be constitutionally diminished, impaired, or shorn away by any conditions, compacts, or stipulations embraced in the act under which the new state came into the Union, which would not be valid and effectual if the subject of congressional legislation after admission. -31- formula as used in Shelby County did not satisfy this test because it was based on decades-old data and eradicated practices. Id. at 2627.