The US Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act on Tuesday in a decision denounced as a setback for civil rights by President Barack Obama and anti-racism activists.
In a hotly anticipated decision, the justices ruled by five votes to four that part of the 1965 law that sets a formula for deciding which states must seek Washington’s blessing when amending voting laws is unconstitutional.
“Our decision in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting,” Chief Justice John Roberts argued, writing in the majority opinion issued with the verdict.
But Obama said he was “deeply disappointed.”
America’s first black president said the ruling “upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent.”
“While today’s decision is a setback, it doesn’t represent the end of our efforts to end voting discrimination,” he said. “I am calling on Congress to pass legislation to ensure every American has equal access to the polls.”
The Voting Rights Act — which was last renewed by Congress in 2006 — is opposed by some states which see it as outmoded, but a number of civil rights organizations have argued it is still needed.
Under the act, nine mainly Southern states, as well as county and local governments in seven states, are required to obtain Justice Department approval for any changes to their voting laws.
The case came before the Supreme Court after the 2008 re-election of Barack Obama — a landmark that critics of the act pointed to as evidence that the law is unnecessary.
The nine-member court had left the Voting Rights Act alone the last time it reviewed it in 2009, but strongly urged Congress to reform it on the grounds that “things have changed in the South.”
The nine states concerned are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, while the local governments are in California, Florida, Michigan and New York.
“Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance,” Roberts wrote.
“Coverage today is based on decades-old data and eradicated practices,” he said. “Today the nation is no longer divided (as it was in 1965) … yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat is as if it were.”
It was up to Congress, Roberts added, to decide whether to draft another formula for preclearance “based on current conditions.”
On the bedrock principle that Washington can approve voting-law changes, enshrined in Section 5 of the law, the court said such an “uncommon exercise of congressional power” could be justified by “exceptional conditions.”
The US Senate renewed the Voting Rights Act in July 2006 for 25 years by a vote of 98-0.
But analysts said that without a Section 4 formula for determining which states and places are required to ask Washington to approve voting-law changes, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is as good as void.
“What the Supreme Court did was to put a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act,” Representative John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia and veteran of the Civil Rights movement, told ABC News.
The United States has been split on the Voting Rights Act for some time, with one recent CNN poll indicating that 50 percent of Americans think it was no longer needed and 48 percent in favor of keeping it on the books.
Representative Jeff Duncan, a Republican from South Carolina, said his state had spent millions of dollars to defend its use of photo ID for voters — a practice he said the Supreme Court had already ruled constitutional.
“The court’s ruling will hopefully end the practice of treating states differently and recognizes that we live in 2013, not the 1960s,” he said, in a statement.
During the 2008 election campaign, activists said that obligatory photo ID for voters would discourage poorer non-white citizens, deemed most likely not to have such a document in their possession, from going to the polls.
US high court strikes down part of Voting Rights Act
