Opinion ID: 109949
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standard, Practice, or Procedure

Text: Section 5 requires federal preclearance before a political subdivision of a State covered by § 4 of the Act may enforce a change in any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting . . . . This provision marked a radical departure from traditional notions of constitutional federalism, a departure several Members of this Court have regarded as unconstitutional. [1] Indeed, the Court noted in the first case to come before it under the Act that § 5 represents an uncommon exercise of congressional power, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 334 (1966), and the Justice Department has conceded in testimony before Congress that it is a substantial departure . . . from ordinary concepts of our federal system. Hearings on S. 407 et al. before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 536 (1975) (testimony of Stanley Pottinger, Asst. Atty. Gen., Civil Rights Division). Congress tempered the intrusion of the Federal Government into state affairs, however, by limiting the Act's coverage to voting regulations. Indeed, the very title of the Act shows that the Act's thrust is directed to the protection of voting rights. Section 2 forbids the States to use any  voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure (emphasis added) to deny anyone the right to vote on account of race. Similarly, § 4 sharply curtails the rights of certain States to use tests or devices as prerequisites to voting eligibility. [T]est or device is defined in § 4 (c), 42 U. S. C. § 1973b (c), as any requirement that a person as a prerequisite for voting or registration for voting (1) demonstrate the ability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter, (2) demonstrate any educational achievement or his knowledge of any particular subject, (3) possess good moral character, or (4) prove his qualifications by the voucher of registered voters or members of any other class. (Emphasis added.) Finally, § 5 requires preclearance only of any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting  (emphasis added). [2] The question under this language, therefore, is whether Rule 58 of the Board pertains to voting. Contrary to the suggestion of the Court's opinion, see ante, at 42-43, the answer to this question turns neither on the Board's possible discrimination against the appellee, nor on the potential of enactments such as Rule 58 for use as instruments of racial discrimination. Section 5 by its terms is not limited to enactments that have a potential for discriminatory use; rather, it extends to all regulations with respect to voting, regardless of their purpose or potential uses. The affected party's race was conceded by counsel to be irrelevant in determining whether Rule 58 pertains to voting, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 25-27; nor is the timing of the adoption of Rule 58 of any significance. Indeed, in stating his cause of action under the Act, the appellee does not allege any discrimination on the basis of race. [3] Yet the Court, in holding that Rule 58 is subject to the preclearance requirements of § 5, relies on a perceived potential for discrimination. In so doing, the Court simply disregards the explicit scope of § 5 and relies upon factors that the parties have conceded to be irrelevant. [4] Separated from all mistaken references to racial discrimination, the Court's holding that Rule 58 is a standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting is difficult to understand. It tortures the language of the Act to conclude that this personnel regulation, having nothing to do with the conduct of elections as such, is state action with respect to voting. No one is denied the right to vote; nor is anyone's exercise of the franchise impaired. To support its interpretation of § 5, the Court has constructed a tenuous theory, reasoning that, because the right to vote includes the right to vote for whoever may wish to run for office, any discouragement given any potential candidate may deprive someone of the right to vote. In constructing this theory, ante, at 41, the Court relies upon Bullock v. Carter, 405 U. S. 134 (1972); Hadnott v. Amos, 394 U. S. 358 (1969); and Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969)cases that involved explicit barriers to candidacy, such as the filing fees held to violate the Fourteenth Amendment in Bullock. The Court states that the reality here is that Rule 58's impact on elections is no different from that of many of the candidate qualification changes for which we have previously required preclearance. Ante, at 41. But the notion that a State or locality imposes a qualification on candidates by refusing to support their campaigns with public funds is without support in reason or precedent. As no prior § 5 decision arguably governs the resolution of this case, the Court draws upon broad dictum that, taken from its context, is meaningless. [5] For example, in Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra, at 566, the Court suggested that § 5 would require clearance of any state enactment which alter[s] the election law of a covered State in even a minor way. Even if the language in Allen were viewed as necessary to the Court's holding in that case, it would not support today's decision. In Allen, as in each of the cases relied upon today, [6] the Court was considering an enactment relating directly to the way in which elections are conducted: either by structuring the method of balloting, setting forth the qualifications for candidates, or determining who shall be permitted to vote. These enactments could be said to be with respect to voting in elections. Rule 58, on the other hand, effects no change in an election law or in a law regulating who may vote or when and where they may do so. It is a personnel rule directed to the resolution of a personnel problem: the expenditure of public funds to support the candidacy of an employee whose time and energies may be devoted to campaigning, rather than to counseling schoolchildren. After extending the scope of § 5 beyond anything indicated in the statutory language or in precedent, the Court attempts to limit its holding by suggesting that Rule 58 somehow differs from a neutral personnel practice governing all forms of absenteeism, as it specifically addresses the electoral process. See ante, at 40. Thus, the Court intimates that it would not require Rule 58 to be precleared if the rule required Board employees to take unpaid leaves of absence whenever an extracurricular responsibility required them frequently to be absent from their dutieswhether that responsibility derived from candidacy for office, campaigning for a friend who is running for office, fulfilling civic duties, or entering into gainful employment with a second employer. The Court goes on, however, to give as the principal reason for extension of § 5 to Rule 58 the effect of such rules on potential candidates for office. What the Court fails to note is that the effect on a potential candidate of a neutral personnel practice governing all forms of absenteeism is no less than the effect of Rule 58 as enacted by the Dougherty County School Board. Thus, under a general absenteeism provision the appellee would go without pay just as he did under Rule 58; the only difference would be that Board employees absent for reasons other than their candidacy would join the appellee on leave. Under the Court's rationale, therefore, even those enactments making no explicit reference to the electoral process would have to be cleared through the Attorney General or the District Court for the District of Columbia. Indeed, if the Court truly means that any incidental impact on elections is sufficient to trigger the preclearance requirement of § 5, then it is difficult to imagine what sorts of state or local enactments would not fall within the scope of that section. [7]