Franks Applauds Unanimous Supreme Court Decision on Abuses of Voting Rights Act

"The Voting Rights Act was a landmark achievement for the Civil Rights Movement, when it was initially passed in 1965. Unfortunately, bureaucrats seized upon perceived opportunities to abuse the measure, twisting the bill to seize power from the states and hand it over to the federal government -- a far cry from the bill's initial intent of rectifying racial discrepancies in the ability to vote freely.

I am proud to have voted with 32 of my colleagues in 2006 to oppose an extension of what had become a shameful corruption of an act that initially served a laudable purpose. And today, in an important decision, all nine Supreme Court justices came down on the side of those of us who have called for reviews of apparent unconstitutional sections within the Voting Rights Act."

In ruling on Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, Attorney General, the Supreme Court agreed with assessments charging that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 raises serious questions of constitutionality and may violate other federal laws.

By relying on precedents that the court agreed were no longer good law, the Voting Rights Act has given the federal government an unreasonable amount of authority over a handful of states, including Arizona, thereby circumventing federalist principles by barring local and state governments from conducting their own elections, without unnecessary interference.

And because the Voting Rights Act is based upon data assembled over forty years ago, it fails to account for several decades of legal advancements, thus no longer reflecting the reality of modern elections.

Furthermore, by using race as the primary factor in determining the bounds of electoral districts, the law ironically serves to perpetuate racial divisions, rather than improving them.