Another Breaking News: U. S. Supreme Court Upholds Voting Rights Act, But Gives Texas District A FREE Pass. Watch Video.

Sorry, I do not have time tonight to analyze the opinion. I'll do so tomorrow, so come back for my analysis and comments.

See you then.

Editor's comment: OK, here is the essence of the Court's opinion, in NORTHWEST AUSTIN MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT NUMBER ONE v. HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL, 08-322 (read the opinion here):

"We therefore hold that all political subdivisions—not only those described in §14(c)(2)—are eligible to file a bailout suit.

* * * More than 40 years ago, this Court concluded that“exceptional conditions” prevailing in certain parts of the country justified extraordinary legislation otherwise un-familiar to our federal system. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 334. In part due to the success of that legislation, we are now a very different Nation. Whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional ques-tion we do not answer today. We conclude instead that the Voting Rights Act permits all political subdivisions, including the district in this case, to seek relief from its preclearance requirements."

More importantly, the Court warned that it found a SERIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL problem with section 5 of the VRA:

"Section 5 goes beyond the prohibition of the Fifteenth Amendment by suspending all changes to state election law—however innocuous—until they have been precleared by federal authorities in Washington, D. C. The preclearance requirement applies broadly, NAACP v. Hampton County Election Comm’n, 470 U. S. 166, 175–176 (1985),and in particular to every political subdivision in a covered State, no matter how small, United States v. Sheffield Bd. of Comm’rs, 435 U. S. 110, 117–118 (1978)."

So what does it all mean, you ask?

It means that Congress MUST take steps to amend the VRA IMMEDIATELY to take advantage of the court's ruling, otherwise the next time a case comes before the court, the court could find the act unconstitutional -- not in the general "FACIAL" sense, but in the limited "AS APPLIED" sense, though Justice Clarence Thomas will do a facial, as you can sense from his dissenting opinion in this case:

"In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in order to guarantee that no citizen would be denied the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Congress passed §5 of the VRA in 1965 because that promise had remained unfulfilled for far too long. But now—more than 40 years later––the violence, intimidation, and subterfuge that led Congress to pass §5 and this Court to uphold it no longer remains. An acknowledgment of §5’s unconstitutionality represents a fulfillment of the Fifteenth Amendment’s promise of full enfranchisement and honors the success achieved by the VRA."