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  • Shelby County voting rights case debated in Washington courtroom

    2/02/11
    Source: 
    The Birmingham News

    WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Shelby County asked a federal judge in Washington today to declare two key parts of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional because Congress relied on old voting statistics when it extended the historic civil rights law for another 25 years.

  • LDF Continues Fight to Defend Voting Rights Act

    2/02/11
    Related Case or Issue: 
    Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder

    The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Presents Oral Argument in Defense of Section 5 of the VRA

    (New York, NY) – Today the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) presented oral argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case challenging a core provision of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 5. The provision requires jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to have voting changes reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to ensure that they are nondiscriminatory.

  • Line drawn on prison head count debate

    1/31/11
    Source: 
    Albany Times Union

    There are legal and practical merits on both sides of the issue. Nozzolio pointed to a section of New York's Constitution that says the census data "shall be controlling" for redistricting purposes.

  • Shelby County will be at forefront of challenge to Voting Rights Act

    1/30/11
    Source: 
    The Birmingham News

    For black residents and their lawyers, diluting the strength of any one black voter is problematic.

    "If there has been a discriminatory voting change, it is not absolved because there have been ten or one hundred non-discriminatory changes; the act of discrimination is still odious," wrote lawyers for the defendants who intervened in the case, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

  • New York Times Editorial: One Nation, Indivisible

    1/27/11
    Source: 
    The New York Times

    Fifteen years ago, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit flouted Supreme Court law when it struck down affirmative action at the University of Texas Law School. Last week, in an act of redemption, the appellate court upheld an admissions plan for undergraduates at the University of Texas at Austin that takes race into account to encourage diversity. The plan was adopted after the Supreme Court again approved affirmative action in higher education in 2003.