Joan Biskupic
By Joan Biskupic
For an often enigmatic figure at the US Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts spoke to the essence of his legal philosophy on Tuesday in eliminating a voting-rights provision enacted to protect blacks and other minorities.
His opinion for the court marks the culmination of an effort by conservatives, many of whom, like Roberts, cut their teeth in the Ronald Reagan administration, to ensure that federal voting requirements on the states be limited and race-based rules fade in contemporary America.
In a tenure-defining decision, the Roberts majority undercut a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires states with a history of racial discrimination to obtain US approval before changing election laws. The court struck down the formula used to determine which states were affected. Nine mostly Southern states had been covered.
CONSERVATIVE PRIORITIES
Last year at this time, Roberts defied many people’s expectations when he provided the fifth vote to uphold the healthcare overhaul sponsored by President Barack Obama. But some legal analysts observed that such a case, testing federal commerce and taxing power, did not touch on his long-held conservative priorities.
When Roberts served as a lawyer in the Reagan administration, he sought to curtail government’s use of racial remedies and specifically narrow the reach of the Voting Rights Act. In 1982, for example, Roberts advised the president to oppose pending legislation to enhance a section aimed at intentional voter discrimination.
Roger Clegg, who worked with Roberts at the Justice Department in the 1980s, said Roberts, like other young Republican lawyers, was inspired by a broad socially conservative agenda that included such subjects as abortion, religion and race. Once he joined the high court, as an appointee of Republican President George W Bush, Roberts asserted his opposition to racial policies. In a 2009 case, in which the court ultimately declined to review the constitutionality of the key Voting Rights Act section, Roberts warned that the screening provision may no longer be constitutional because “things have changed in the South.”
He questioned why Congress would still target Southern states when widespread blatant racial discrimination had ended. Can members of Congress “impose this disparate treatment forever because of the history in the South?” he asked during oral arguments in the 2009 case. “When do they have to stop?”
On Tuesday, Roberts provided an answer: Now.
In his 24-page opinion for the court, Roberts criticised Congress for leaving in place the criteria for targeted states that traced to the 1960s and early 1970s, despite the gains in voting equality since then.
Voicing irritation that lawmakers had not acted on the court’s warning in 2009 to revise the formula used to determine which states were covered, Roberts said it had no choice but to strike it down.
As he wrote about the changes across the country in recent decades, the chief justice noted that voter registration rates for blacks and whites now approach parity and blatant discrimination is rare.
“Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote, joined by his four fellow conservatives.
In the cool marble courtroom on a scorching June morning, Roberts was expressionless. After decades of tension over the scope of voting rights, he had his majority.
REUTERS
By Joan Biskupic
For an often enigmatic figure at the US Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts spoke to the essence of his legal philosophy on Tuesday in eliminating a voting-rights provision enacted to protect blacks and other minorities.
His opinion for the court marks the culmination of an effort by conservatives, many of whom, like Roberts, cut their teeth in the Ronald Reagan administration, to ensure that federal voting requirements on the states be limited and race-based rules fade in contemporary America.
In a tenure-defining decision, the Roberts majority undercut a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires states with a history of racial discrimination to obtain US approval before changing election laws. The court struck down the formula used to determine which states were affected. Nine mostly Southern states had been covered.
CONSERVATIVE PRIORITIES
Last year at this time, Roberts defied many people’s expectations when he provided the fifth vote to uphold the healthcare overhaul sponsored by President Barack Obama. But some legal analysts observed that such a case, testing federal commerce and taxing power, did not touch on his long-held conservative priorities.
When Roberts served as a lawyer in the Reagan administration, he sought to curtail government’s use of racial remedies and specifically narrow the reach of the Voting Rights Act. In 1982, for example, Roberts advised the president to oppose pending legislation to enhance a section aimed at intentional voter discrimination.
Roger Clegg, who worked with Roberts at the Justice Department in the 1980s, said Roberts, like other young Republican lawyers, was inspired by a broad socially conservative agenda that included such subjects as abortion, religion and race. Once he joined the high court, as an appointee of Republican President George W Bush, Roberts asserted his opposition to racial policies. In a 2009 case, in which the court ultimately declined to review the constitutionality of the key Voting Rights Act section, Roberts warned that the screening provision may no longer be constitutional because “things have changed in the South.”
He questioned why Congress would still target Southern states when widespread blatant racial discrimination had ended. Can members of Congress “impose this disparate treatment forever because of the history in the South?” he asked during oral arguments in the 2009 case. “When do they have to stop?”
On Tuesday, Roberts provided an answer: Now.
In his 24-page opinion for the court, Roberts criticised Congress for leaving in place the criteria for targeted states that traced to the 1960s and early 1970s, despite the gains in voting equality since then.
Voicing irritation that lawmakers had not acted on the court’s warning in 2009 to revise the formula used to determine which states were covered, Roberts said it had no choice but to strike it down.
As he wrote about the changes across the country in recent decades, the chief justice noted that voter registration rates for blacks and whites now approach parity and blatant discrimination is rare.
“Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote, joined by his four fellow conservatives.
In the cool marble courtroom on a scorching June morning, Roberts was expressionless. After decades of tension over the scope of voting rights, he had his majority.
REUTERS
