See this story for an update on John Jay Hooker’s court battle over whether Tennessee’s state Constitution requires candidate-versus-candidate elections for judicial positions.
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On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County, Alabama v Holder that section four of the federal Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. Section four is the coverage formula for determining which jurisdictions must get permission before changing any voting law or practice. If Congress does nothing, then section five can’t be enforced either. Section five says that covered jurisdictions must get approval from the Justice Department before changing election laws and practices. The vote was 5-4. The decision is by Chief Justice John Roberts.
The dissent is by Justice Ruth Ginsburg. The dissent, at pages 24-28, has considerable detail about Alabama, and why that state’s past and recent record of voting rights behavior justifies continued existence of the entire federal Voting Rights Act.
Since it is not likely that Congress will re-write section four, the practical impact of today’s decision will be to increase the number of lawsuits. Section two of the act has not been limited in any way. It gives the U.S. Justice Department authority to sue any state or other jurisdiction that has an election law or practice that results in racial discrimination in voting. The number of such lawsuits will probably increase, because the new laws and practices that lead to such lawsuits will increase without the pre-clearance law in effect.
On June 24, the New Jersey Assembly passed AB 4237, which moves this year’s election for Governor and legislature from November 5 to October 16. The identical bill in the Senate, SB 2858, has passed a Senate Committee, so it seems likely that one or the other bill will pass the legislature. If so, it will be interesting to see if Governor Christie signs the bill or vetoes it.
See this interesting interview with Ralph Nader, in which the 2016 presidential election is discussed. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
New Jersey is one of the 31 states that asks voters on the voter registration form to choose a party, or independent status. However, New Jersey has a very strange policy to determine which parties voters can join, on voter registration forms. For the last 93 years, the only qualified parties in New Jersey have been the Democratic and Republican Parties. Until 2001, no one could register in New Jersey except as a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent. In 2001 the New Jersey State Appeals Court ruled that voters must be allowed to register into parties that are not qualified, but which regularly place nominees on the ballot. Unqualified parties do that by submitting petitions for their nominees; the ballots contain the names of those unqualified parties, next to the names of their nominees.
The 2001 court decision was won by five parties: Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, and Reform. The state then started letting voters register into those parties, but never set out any regulations, or any updated laws, giving general guidance as to which unqualified parties could qualify for voter registration rights. Later the Conservative Party won a similar lawsuit, so voters could register into that party also. So, New Jersey, in practice, requires parties to sue, before they can enjoy voter registration rights.
On June 24, the Socialist Party of New Jersey sued for the same registration rights. Here is the complaint. When the Conservative Party had sued New Jersey, the state didn’t contest the lawsuit. It will be interesting to see how the state responds to the Socialist Party’s lawsuit. The party already asked for voter registration rights and the state refused.