Shelby County: VRA challenge argument in DC
The Birmingham News reports: Shelby County will be at the forefront of the national debate over whether minorities, especially in the South, still face discrimination at the ballot box when a judge this week hears the county's arguments that parts of the Voting Rights Act are obsolete.
The politically conservative and mostly white suburban county south of Birmingham is the latest to take a crack at the 46-year-old federal law as an outdated burden that Congress had no business extending for another 25 years.
Others have tried to prove that part of the historic civil rights law is no longer necessary because of advances in race relations, but a definitive answer on its constitutionality has not been forthcoming.
So now it's Shelby County's turn. Financially backed by a nonprofit legal defense fund, the county is asking a federal judge to declare two key sections of the law unconstitutional. If the county's argument is successful, it would strike down the federal government's main tool for policing local and state elections for discrimination, intentional or not.
-- Read the whole story --> Shelby County will be at forefront of challenge to Voting Rights Act | al.com
