On July 25, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that he will seek to use Section 3 of the federal Voting Rights Act against Texas. Section 3 says that, notwithstanding the coverage formula for pre-clearance, any state that has recently showed a pattern of passing or enforcing discriminatory voting practices must obtain approval from the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department before changing any election laws or practices. See this story. This action is a reminder that just because Section 4, the formula for determining which areas of the country are subject to pre-clearance, is no longer part of the law (because of last month’s U.S. Supreme Court opinion Shelby County, Alabama v Holder), the more obscure section 3 is still in the law. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

UPDATE: also on July 25, the Department of Justice, which is intervening in one of the Texas redistricting cases (Perez v State of Texas, western district of Texas, 5:11cv-360), asked that Court to apply section 3. See this brief filed by the Justice Department.

On July 24, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to hear Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission v Bennett, cv13-0233. This is the case in which supporters of public funding challenged new, higher campaign contribution limits for candidates who don’t participate in the public funding program. The State Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case doesn’t mean that the case is dead. It just means that the plaintiffs must start all over again in the trial court. See this story. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.