What Business Does the Supreme Court Have To Even *Consider* the Voting Rights Act?

I just don't understand where Roberts, Scalia & Co. have any business even looking at this law.  Can anyone explain this to me?

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is very simple and straightforward:

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Okay, Congress has this power to enforce this Amendment with 'appropriate legislation.' What are the boundaries of 'appropriateness'? If it hasn't exceeded them by passing the Voting Rights Act, then the Supreme Court should sit down and shut up.

Quite a few other Constitutional amendments have a section with essentially the same language as Section 2, specifically the 13th, 14th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 26th Amendments, and the defunct 18th Amendment to the Constitution.

So, how big a grant of authority to Congress is the power to enforce a Constitutional amendment with appropriate legislation?

The Supreme Court, discussing the identical section of the 14th Amendment in Ex Parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1879) said at 345-346 (emphasis mine):

It is not said the judicial power of the general government shall extend to enforcing the prohibitions and to protecting the rights and immunities guaranteed. It is not said that a branch of the government shall be authorized to declare void any action of a State in violation of the prohibitions. It is the power of Congress which has been enlarged, Congress is authorized to enforce the prohibitions by appropriate legislation. Some legislation is contemplated to make the amendments fully effective. Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights and the equal protection of the laws against State denial or invasion, if not prohibited, is brought within the domain of congressional power.

"Whatever legislation is...adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view...is brought within the domain of congressional power."

That seems pretty clear to me.

How can the Court possibly say the Voting Rights Act fails that test? As best as I can tell, it is not for them to judge whether the VRA enforces the Fifteenth Amendment in a way they like. It is not for them to judge whether the VRA enforces the Fifteenth Amendment in a way that they regard as effective.  It is not even for them to judge whether the VRA's enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment is superfluous at this point in time. It is only for them to judge whether the VRA is "adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view." Which it obviously is.

The Supreme Court should sit down and shut up before they gut all seven Constitutional amendments that include this language.

Comments

[oddjob]

The Supreme Court should sit down and shut up before they gut all seven Constitutional amendments that include this language.

Nothing more clearly demonstrates how activist, not originalist, Scalia is than his statements regarding this case.

[low-tech cyclist]

The main difference anymore between Scalia and your retired uncle who spends all day watching Fox and listening to Rush, is that your uncle doesn't have a vote on the Supreme Court.

Between the ACA and this case, he's demonstrated that he's nothing more than an ignorant wingnut blowhard at this point.

[Joe S]

The Court certainly has the right and the jurisdiction to determine whether legislation is "appropriate" or not. That's the key issue here. The Conservatives have a much more limited view of what is "appropriate" when it comes to making determinations of this type. I'd just add that Scalia has become truly an embarrassment- which is sad because he used to be a very sharp legal thinker in the 1980's and 1990's.

[low-tech cyclist]

The Court certainly has the right and the jurisdiction to determine whether legislation is "appropriate" or not. That's the key issue here.

Tru dat, but past Courts have already spoken to the meaning of 'appropriate legislation,' as I've cited above, basically saying that if the legislation is an attempt to carry out the goals of the Amendment, then it's appropriate.

They can throw that legal history out the window, but at that point they're blatantly legislating from the bench.

[oddjob]

basically saying that if the legislation is an attempt to carry out the goals of the Amendment, then it's appropriate

Interesting how that's the sort of minimalism the conservative jurists say they believe in, even as it seems apparent that in this particular case they have no interest in such minimalism at all.

[low-tech cyclist]

Judicial minimalism flew out the window for this Court with Citizens United, if not earlier.

But this case is exceptional in the degree to which it's a violation of that professed minimalism. This is more than just going against the usual 'trust the legislature to do its job' reasoning, because the 15th Amendment gives Congress that additional grant of authority to pass laws making the Amendment a reality. (Section 2 of the Amendment is meaningless unless it gives Congress more authority in this area than it would otherwise have, and the Court in Ex Parte Virginia clearly thought Section 2 had meaning.)

Plus it would be going against precedent - and I've got to say that this Court has already felt less constrained by precedent than any I can remember.

[Joe S]

LTC, I think this is an area where conservatives and liberals/moderates see things inherently differently. There are two broad ways to interpret the Civil War Amendments. The left version is to interpret the civil war amendments as "anti-subordination" clauses. The whole purpose of the Civil War Amendments is to break up and then prevent racial (and later) gender caste systems where large portions of the population are consistently kept in a lower class status based upon race or gender.

[low-tech cyclist]

Joe - I'm not going anywhere fancy like that. Just that 7 different Constitutional amendments (the three post-Civil War amendments and four much later amendments, not counting the 18th) all share this clause. By this time, what it means has to be a long-settled point of law. Genuinely conservative jurisprudence would abide by that consensus.

[Joe S]

LTC, the second part of my comment got eaten. Conservative jurists see the Civil War Amendments as "anti-discrimination" requirements. Specifically, the Congress only has authority violations of formal equality that would prevent an individual from acting based upon race or gender. The conservatives believe the Civil War Amendments did much less to disturb the original constitutional order (which was partially designed to protect local elites, and could be seen as a pact among local elites). Thus, Congress using the Civil War Amendments to break up systemic factors which perpetuate group inequality (like voter ID laws) is seen as constitutionally suspect and generally illegitimate.