By Grant Bosse
Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision carving out a narrow exemption to the Voting Rights Act may allow New Hampshire to change its election laws without federal oversight for the first time in over 40 years. Assistant Attorney General Jim Kennedy says he needs to study the ruling carefully, but it appears to apply to ten towns in the Granite State. New Hampshire authorities have been trying to remove ten towns from the Department of Justice’s jurisdiction for the past five years.
In The Northwest Utility District Number One v. Holder, the high court ruled 8-1 that a utility district in Texas could “bail out” of requirements to clear any changes to its elections with the Justice Department, despite the State of Texas being one of nine states listed as a “Covered Jurisdiction” under Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act. Parts of seven other states, including ten towns in New Hampshire, are also covered by the Act.
“I’ve just had opportunity to review the decision, however, I haven’t given it a full read as of this time. It appears that all political subdivisions, including those not listed under 14(c)(2) are entitled to bail out,” Kennedy said. “This seems to indicate that all the towns and unincorporated places covered in New Hampshire would be entitled to bail out.”
Under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Congress required the Justice Department to sign off any changes to election laws in Covered Jurisdictions in order to prevent pro-segregation legislatures from imposing new hurdles on black voters. The Act abolished Jim Crow laws such as literacy tests and poll taxes. Congress specifically listed several states that had a literacy test in place, but also automatically covered any district where less than 50% of the voting age population were registered or voted in the November 1964 General Election. Low voter registration figures in ten small New Hampshire towns triggered the VRA, and any changes to local elections have been subject to federal oversight since November 1, 1968.
Those towns are Antrim, Benton, Boscawen, Millsfield, Newington, Pinkham’s Grant, Rindge, Stewartstown, Stratford, and Unity. Anything from moving a polling place to redrawing legislative districts is supposed to be submitted to the U.S. Attorney General or the federal district court in Washington D.C. for approval before those changes can be enforced.
In 2004, then Attorney General Peter Heed asked the Justice Department to let New Hampshire’s covered towns bail out of Section 5, arguing that the preclearance requirements made it difficult for the state to implement the Help America Vote Act of 2002. According to Heed’s letter, his office prepared 140 preclearance requests covering changes to New Hampshire law. Current Attorney General Kelly Ayotte submitted 58 such requests in 2005 alone.
In the Texas case, an elected Utility District board argued that since it had never practiced the racial discrimination that the Voting Rights Act aimed to prevent, it should be allowed to “bail out” from federal oversight, and questioned the constitutionality of the provision. The Supreme Court found the Justice Department has been improperly blocking Covered Jurisdictions the “bail out” option, as only 17 of the more than 12,000 covered jurisdictions have successfully bailed out of the law since 1982. The Court declined to overturn the law in its entirety. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that the violence and intimidation that led to the Act’s passage no longer remain.
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This story may be reprinted with attribution to the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision carving out a narrow exemption to the Voting Rights Act may allow New Hampshire to change its election laws without federal oversight for the first time in over 40 years. Assistant Attorney General Jim Kennedy says he needs to study the ruling carefully, but it appears to apply to ten towns in the Granite State. New Hampshire authorities have been trying to remove ten towns from the Department of Justice’s jurisdiction for the past five years.
In The Northwest Utility District Number One v. Holder, the high court ruled 8-1 that a utility district in Texas could “bail out” of requirements to clear any changes to its elections with the Justice Department, despite the State of Texas being one of nine states listed as a “Covered Jurisdiction” under Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act. Parts of seven other states, including ten towns in New Hampshire, are also covered by the Act.
“I’ve just had opportunity to review the decision, however, I haven’t given it a full read as of this time. It appears that all political subdivisions, including those not listed under 14(c)(2) are entitled to bail out,” Kennedy said. “This seems to indicate that all the towns and unincorporated places covered in New Hampshire would be entitled to bail out.”
Under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Congress required the Justice Department to sign off any changes to election laws in Covered Jurisdictions in order to prevent pro-segregation legislatures from imposing new hurdles on black voters. The Act abolished Jim Crow laws such as literacy tests and poll taxes. Congress specifically listed several states that had a literacy test in place, but also automatically covered any district where less than 50% of the voting age population were registered or voted in the November 1964 General Election. Low voter registration figures in ten small New Hampshire towns triggered the VRA, and any changes to local elections have been subject to federal oversight since November 1, 1968.
Those towns are Antrim, Benton, Boscawen, Millsfield, Newington, Pinkham’s Grant, Rindge, Stewartstown, Stratford, and Unity. Anything from moving a polling place to redrawing legislative districts is supposed to be submitted to the U.S. Attorney General or the federal district court in Washington D.C. for approval before those changes can be enforced.
In 2004, then Attorney General Peter Heed asked the Justice Department to let New Hampshire’s covered towns bail out of Section 5, arguing that the preclearance requirements made it difficult for the state to implement the Help America Vote Act of 2002. According to Heed’s letter, his office prepared 140 preclearance requests covering changes to New Hampshire law. Current Attorney General Kelly Ayotte submitted 58 such requests in 2005 alone.
In the Texas case, an elected Utility District board argued that since it had never practiced the racial discrimination that the Voting Rights Act aimed to prevent, it should be allowed to “bail out” from federal oversight, and questioned the constitutionality of the provision. The Supreme Court found the Justice Department has been improperly blocking Covered Jurisdictions the “bail out” option, as only 17 of the more than 12,000 covered jurisdictions have successfully bailed out of the law since 1982. The Court declined to overturn the law in its entirety. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that the violence and intimidation that led to the Act’s passage no longer remain.
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This story may be reprinted with attribution to the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
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