The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Today, LCCR submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the constitutionality of Congress' 2006 reauthorization of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). 

Section 5 requires states and localities with a history of discrimination to submit changes in their voting process and procedures to Department of Justice or a federal D.C. district court for approval or "preclearance."

Amicus briefs, meaning "friend of the court," are legal briefs submitted by someone who is not a party in case that offers additional information to assist the court in deciding the case.

Congress passed the VRA in 1965 to eliminate discriminatory voting practices by state and local governments. The law has been reauthorized and amended several times since it was passed, most recently with a 25-year reauthorization passed in 2006 and set to expire in 2031.

The plaintiff in the case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1, claims that the preclearance provision is no longer "necessary or constitutionally proper" because the kind of discrimination the provision is designed to stop is no longer a problem. 

However, LCCR's brief cites the Court's own recent decision in Bartlett v. Strickland, in which the Court said that "racial discrimination and racially polarized voting are not ancient history."

A federal court upheld the constitutionality of the provision last May.