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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Camila Gallardo
(305) 573-7329/(305) 215-4259
cgallardo@nclr.org
Today’s decision to strike this important provision will lead to erosion of progress in voter equality unless Congress acts quickly
While the Supreme Court did not issue a ruling on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, today it struck down in a 5–4 decision Section 4(b), a provision of the law known as preclearance that provides a formula to identify areas that have prevalent histories of voting discrimination. Despite the fact that Congress overwhelmingly passed a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act just a few years ago, the Court placed the burden back on Congress to develop a new formula to determine which states or jurisdictions are subject to preclearance.
“This decision does not kill the Voting Rights Act outright, but it does put it on life support. The Justices know full well that remanding this act to a deeply divided Congress puts the right to vote for millions of Americans in jeopardy,” said Janet Murguía, President and CEO of NCLR (National Council of La Raza). “We saw a slew of attempts to suppress the minority vote in the 2012 election, and the states in question have been at the forefront of these efforts, not to mention being ground zero for extreme anti-immigrant legislation such as HB 56 and SB 1070. While we should be very proud of the advancements that have been made since 1965, the need to protect the right to vote is not yet relegated to history—it is still at the very top of the civil rights agenda.”
“As the late Latino icon Willie Velasquez said, ‘Su voto es su voz,’ and today the Supreme Court has endangered that voice since one in three Latinos live in areas covered under the Voting Rights Act. We urge Congress to act quickly to address this decision and continue safeguarding the rights of all Americans to vote. As an organization that registered tens of thousands of eligible Latino voters in states across the country in the last election, we know that any progress we have made would erode without a strong, intact Voting Rights Act,” concluded Murguía.
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