By now, you should all know that the Supreme Court handed down their long-awaited decision in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. In short, the Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a nearly unanimous court holding that Section 5 was bad and faced several constitutional problems, but the Court decided to give Congress [...]

The Court’s decision in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder largely dodged the core constitutional issue in question and has forced me to wonder how the Court will handle a different, though similarly charged, issue in Ricci v. DeStefano. To refresh everyone on the facts in Ricci, a group of white firefighters [...]

Today was the final day for arguments during OT08 and the Court heard arguments in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. You can find the transcript here. The arguments made were certainly very interesting. Justice Scalia, while criticizing the near-unanimity with which Congress passed the VRA extension, made this observation: You know, [...]

C-SPAN is now streaming the audio from oral arguments on their website. Link here. My initial thoughts: the Justices are very, very skeptical of Section 5.

Tony Mauro is reporting that Solicitor General may wait until next term to argue her first case before the Supreme Court. It had been reported earlier that she might argue for the first time in the landmark Voting Rights Act case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder. Mauro is now reporting that Neal Katyal [...]

The Supreme Court granted review today in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Michael Mukasey, a case revolving around whether or not there is still sufficient justification to force municipalities to have their districts pre-approved by Congress. §5 of the Voting Rights Act, now 42 U.S.C 1973(c), forces certain ‘covered jurisdictions’ to have [...]