Program Work
Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder
In 2006, just days after President Bush signed into law the bill reauthorizing core provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a small water district in Austin, Texas filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C. challenging the preclearance provision known as Section 5 of the Act. ...
MorePerry v. Brown
In 2008, a ballot proposition and state constitutional amendment was passed in California, known as Proposition 8 (Prop 8). Enacted after 18,000 same-sex couples became legally married in California, Prop 8 restricted the definition of marriage by prohibiting the recognition of same-sex...
MorePrison-Based Gerrymandering Legislative Reform
“Prison-based gerrymandering” is a practice whereby many states and local governments count incarcerated persons as residents of the areas where they are housed when election district lines are drawn. This practice distorts our democratic process by artificially inflating the...
MoreRedistricting
In August of 2010, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), along with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Asian American Justice Center, released The Impact of Redistricting in Your Community: A Guide to Redistricting.
This...
MoreScott v. Schedler
Scott v. Schedler is a lawsuit alleging that the State of Louisiana has failed to comply with its obligations under the National Voter Registration Act (also known as the “NVRA” and the “Motor Voter Act”). The NVRA was enacted in 1993 to ensure that all Americans, regardless of...
MoreShelby County, Alabama v. Holder
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is one of our nation’s most effective federal civil rights statutes. Shelby County, Alabama...
MoreSouth Carolina v. United States
The State of South Carolina filed South Carolina v. United States in federal court in Washington, D.C. under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, seeking approval of its proposed restrictive voter ID law. The Department of Justice has already rejected...
MoreTexas v. Holder
Voting Rights Act Reauthorization 2006
On July 27, 2006, President Bush became the fourth president to extend core temporary enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act, and the second to sign a 25-year extension. On signing the bill into law, he committed his administration to "vigorously enforce the provisions of this...
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