Opinion ID: 203934
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Original VRA of 1965

Text: The original VRA was enacted against the background of explicit constitutional and congressional [11] approval of state felon disenfranchisement laws and expressed no intention to invalidate such laws, but rather an intention to leave such laws untouched. Prior to the enactment of the VRA, enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment guarantee that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, U.S. Const. amend. XV, § 1, was unsatisfactory. Nw. Austin, 129 S.Ct. at -09. In 1965, Congress enacted the VRA with the intent to banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting, which ha[d] infected the electoral process in parts of our country for nearly a century. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 308, 86 S.Ct. 803, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966). Plaintiffs' claim here concededly does not involve any such intent. The language of the original § 2 tracked ... the text of the Fifteenth Amendment, Bartlett, 129 S.Ct. at 1240. The Court emphasized this point when it said that the original § 2 did no more than elaborate[] upon ... the Fifteenth Amendment, id. at 1241 (omission in original) (quoting City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 60-61, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980) (plurality opinion)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The VRA's original object was plainly to combat specific forms of racial discrimination. [12] Beyond § 2, the remainder of the VRA set up a scheme of stringent remedies to address the most flagrant practices. [T]he Act directly pre-empted the most powerful tools of black disenfranchisement in the covered areas. All literacy tests and similar voting qualifications were abolished by § 4 of the Act. Nw. Austin, 129 S.Ct. at , (citing Voting Rights Act of 1965, §§ 4(a)-(d), 79 Stat. 437, 438-439). The legislative history of the VRA shows that Congress was not silent with respect to felon disenfranchisement laws. In fact, Congress explicitly considered the effect of the VRA on state felon disenfranchisement laws, and did so under § 4, rather than under § 2. [13] Section 4 of the VRA bans any test or device that impermissibly limits the franchise. 42 U.S.C. § 1973b(c). Congress, in enacting § 4(c) proscribed several categories of historically discriminatory tests or devices, including some literacy tests, educational achievement or knowledge tests, and good moral character qualifications. But Congress was careful to carve out from its proscription of tests for good moral character any and all state felon disenfranchisement laws. H.R.Rep. No. 89-439 (1965), reprinted in 1965 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2437, 2547-57. In excluding felon disenfranchisement laws from the scope of § 4, Congress took the view that it did not consider such laws to be a discriminatory voter qualification or a tool[] of black disenfranchisement. Nw. Austin, 129 S.Ct. at . The Senate Judiciary Committee Report explicitly stated that this § 4 prohibition on tests and devices would not result in the proscription of the frequent requirement of States and political subdivisions that an applicant for voting or registration for voting be free of conviction of a felony or mental disability. S.Rep. No. 89-162 (1965), reprinted in 1965 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2508, 2562 (joint views of Senators Dodd, Hart, Long, Kennedy, Bayh, Burdick, Tydings, Dirksen, Hruska, Fong, Scott, and Javits). The House Report confirms the Senate's understanding. It stated that the VRA does not proscribe a requirement of a State or any political subdivision of a State that an applicant for voting or registration for voting be free of conviction of a felony or mental disability. H.R.Rep. No. 89-439, reprinted in 1965 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 2457. In drafting the VRA, Congress considered felon disenfranchisement statutes, and it viewed them as a potential test or device that fell within the purview of § 4 and not § 2. We are not free to second guess Congress's categorizations of felon disenfranchisement statutes. Further, Congress made clear that it did not purport to outlaw state felon disenfranchisement statutes based on their effect. Rather, under § 4, Congress enumerated and outlawed tests or devices it viewed as disqualifications excluding minority voters. Felon disenfranchisement laws were specifically removed from this category by Congress and were considered nondiscriminatory. In light of this express history, Congress could not have intended to create a cause of action under § 2 of the VRA against disenfranchisement of incarcerated felons while saying explicitly elsewhere that it did not intend to proscribe any such laws. Other courts agree with our conclusion. Hayden, 449 F.3d at 319 ([I]t is apparent to us that Congress's effort to highlight the exclusion of felon disenfranchisement laws from a VRA provision that otherwise would likely be read to invalidate such laws is indicative of its broader intention to exclude such laws from the reach of the statute.); see also Farrakhan, 359 F.3d at 1120-21 (Kozinski, J., dissenting from denial of reh'g en banc). This point is buttressed by another aspect of § 4. As drafted in 1965, § 4 applied to covered jurisdictions. [14] Congress would not have permitted felon disenfranchisement laws in covered jurisdictions where there was a history of discrimination, while prohibiting them in non-covered jurisdictions like Massachusetts. To subject felon disenfranchisement in a non-covered jurisdiction to a VRA cause of action while prohibiting such a cause of action for a covered jurisdiction would itself raise significant constitutional concerns. See Nw. Austin, 129 S.Ct. at . If there were any doubt as to Congress's intent not to create a cause of action against laws like Article 120, other actions show congressional acceptance of even broader felon disenfranchisement laws than involved here, reinforcing the conclusion that § 2 was not meant to proscribe laws such as Article 120. In 1971, just six years after passing the VRA, Congress affirmatively enacted a broader felon disenfranchisement statute covering both imprisoned and paroled felons in the District of Columbia, over which it then exercised plenary power. Act of Dec. 23, 1971, Pub.L. No. 92-220, § 4, 85 Stat. 788, 788; see also Hayden, 449 F.3d at 315. Congress would not have prohibited states from imposing such disqualifications when it imposed them itself on the District. Further, between the passage of the VRA in 1965 and the 1982 amendments, Congress considered and rejected proposals to amend the VRA [15] to prohibit certain types of state felon disenfranchisement laws. Congress understood that the VRA, as enacted in 1965, did not permit claims against state felon disenfranchisement laws and that amendment of the VRA would be needed to permit such suits, and it declined to make those amendments. Two points are important. First, Congress rejected each those proposed amendments. Second, even those rejected amendments would have precluded suits raising claims of disenfranchisement of a citizen [who] is confined in a correctional facility at the time of such ... election, as does Article 120 now at issue. See Ex-Offenders Voting Rights: Hearing on H.R. 9020 Before the Subcomm. on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 93d Cong. 4 (1974). In 1972, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on The Problems of the Ex-Offender. See Corrections, Part VI, Illinois: The Problems of the Ex-Offender: Hearing Before Subcomm. No. 3 of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 92d Cong. (1972). In response to these hearings, several prominent VRA advocates in Congress jointly introduced a bill designed to amend the [VRA] to prohibit the States from denying the right to vote in Federal elections to former criminal offenders who have not been convicted of any offense related to voting or elections and who are not confined in a correctional institution.  Hayden, 449 F.3d at 319 (emphasis added) (quoting H.R. 15,049, 92d Cong. (1972)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The bill did not result in legislation. Id. Similarly, Congress held hearings in 1973 expressly addressing but not adopting proposed amendments to the VRA to allow challenges to felon disenfranchisement for only that category of ex-offenders who were not imprisoned. [16] See Ex-Offenders Voting Rights: Hearing on H.R. 9020, supra, 93d Cong. 1-38; see also Hayden, 449 F.3d at 319. Plaintiffs' claim that § 2 as drafted in 1965 permits a cause of action against Article 120 fails.