Late in 2019, the House passed legislation to ensure all Americans have equal access to vote. H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, sponsored by Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), passed in December on a near party-line vote (228-187), with one Republican supporting it. The bill aims to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in its entirety. The landmark law was pared back after the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which essentially stripped the law of a “coverage formula” that determined which jurisdictions had a history of racial discrimination in voting policies. Those jurisdictions would then need…

Leading Democrats in the House sent a letter to the Justice Department on April 12 requesting a review of new voting laws nationwide following reports of problems experienced during primary elections in Arizona and North Carolina. Seventeen States have new laws in place this election year with provisions that include voter ID requirements, cutbacks in early voting, and registration changes. Senior Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the chairs of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus signed the letter. The Justice Department is already investigating voting issues…

The U.S. Supreme Court closed out its 2012-2013 term last week, and as predicted, it handed down blockbuster decisions on the Voting Rights Act and gay marriage in its final days. The week started with the Court issuing a ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which challenged the consideration of race as a factor during the undergraduate admissions process. Rather than issuing a decisive opinion on the subject, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a seven-justice majority, remanded the case back to the circuit court, with instructions that the court reconsider the case and apply “strict scrutiny” to…