Shelby County vs. Holder: Post Argument Controversy

By: davenj1 (Diary)  |  March 2nd at 10:20 AM  | 

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Voting Rights Act case, Shelby County, Alabama vs. Holder. I have previously written about this case and its importance. To recount briefly, a county in Alabama has challenged Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and specifically its pre-clearance requirements and the formulas used to determine which states or political subdivisions should be | Read More »

Electoral Reform- Part 6: Redistricting

By: davenj1 (Diary)  |  November 16th at 04:53 AM  | 

The Constitution requires that every ten years, the country must conduct a census of its population. In the most recent census, several of my more conservative friends believed this to be some liberal conspiracy of varying sorts and asserted their intention not to return their census form. Of course, they do so at their own political peril. The purpose is to first determine the number | Read More »

Shelby County, Alabama: The Specifics and Voting Rights

By: davenj1 (Diary)  |  July 15th at 08:39 AM  | 

The Shelby County case was officially initiated in April 2010, but the real story begins in the 1980s. Then, it what is known as the Dillard case, several blacks challenged the method of at-large elections for county commissioners in Alabama. Shelby County was not an original defendant, but eventually became one. The lower court found that Alabama would often resort to the at-large method to | Read More »