简介： Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder （Holder为现任司法部总检察长） 投票权法(Voting Right Acts)禁止剥夺少数族裔的投票权，北卡州政府此次提出的诉 状以州内非洲裔占39%的州级选区为例，认为应该把少数族裔划归在同一个选区，避免 多数族裔（白人）垄断议席而让少数族裔无法推出希望的人选。 最高法院以5:4驳回北卡的诉求，明确认定只有少数族裔人口超过一半时才有基於族裔 分布而有重划选区的必要。 （2010年的时候将要进行10年一次的人口普查并重划选区，观察家认为这对仰赖少数 族裔的民主党不利，尤其是在南方） 多数意见由甘乃迪大法官执笔，罗伯兹首席大法官与阿利托大法官签署，史卡利亚与 托马士大法官表示赞同。反对意见书由苏特大法官执笔，史蒂文斯大法官、金士堡大 法官与布瑞尔大法官列名。 （附注：按照意识形态分布，持反对意见的四位大法官是现在最高法院的自由派，执 笔多数意见的甘乃迪大法官是Swing Vote，赞同他的另外四位大法官是保守派） 另外一个更重要的「投票权法」诉案将在下个月听审，以决定有种族歧视纪录的16个 州是否需要事先批准才能更改选举进程。同时，最高法院驳回亚利桑纳等14个州的诉 状，明确表达不允许以地址为由禁止独立派人士竞选。 世界日报中文版的浓缩： http://udn.com/NEWS/WORLD/WOR6/4780693.shtml 纽约时报： Justices, 5-4, Set Limit on Sweep of Voting Law Published: March 9, 2009 WASHINGTON — Only election districts in which minorities make up at least half of the voting-age population are entitled to the protections of a part of the Voting Rights Act that seeks to ensure and preserve minority voting power, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday. Officials in North Carolina had argued that the act required them to help maintain black influence at the voting booth by creating a district that included about 39 percent of the black voting-age population. The theory was that the law protected black voters who joined with white “crossover voters” to elect a candidate of the black voters’ choice. The court rejected that argument by a 5-to-4 vote. Congress did not specify what percentage of minority voters in a district would call for the protections of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when it later prohibited what courts have termed “vote dilution.” And the Supreme Court until now had avoided picking a number. The district at issue in the case, which the North Carolina General Assembly created in 2003, was the consequence of an effort to preserve minority voting power notwithstanding changing demographics and legal concerns about the district’s shape. North Carolina officials settled on combining parts of two counties to create a relatively compact district that they said maintained “ an adequate representation of black voters,” which was, in their view, 39 percent. In rejecting the district, the Supreme Court effectively reduced the number of voting districts in which the Voting Rights Act will mandate that minorities play a dominant role. The bright-line 50 percent rule also makes litigation over the legality of particular districts less likely. “The decision turns 50 percent into a magic number,” said Richard L. Hasen, who teaches election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Richard H. Pildes, a law professor at New York University whose work the justices cited many times in the decision Monday, said that current events, including the fact that both major political parties are led by African-Americans, had complicated the legal landscape, creating “tremendous pressure on a statute that was primarily structured for an earlier era in which blacks were completely excluded from office.” The decision resolved a question the court had left open in earlier decisions, and it touched off a sharp debate among the justices about how best to protect minority voting rights without cementing racially polarized voting. In dissent, Justice David H. Souter — writing for himself and Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens — said the upshot of the decision would be more racial polarization. It will require states “to pack black voters” into districts in which minorities make up the majority, Justice Souter said, “contracting the number of districts where racial minorities are having success in transcending racial divisions.” Nonetheless, some legal experts said the impact of the decision might be relatively minor. “How many districts will not be drawn as a result of this decision?” asked Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Columbia. “The answer is very few.” Whatever its practical impact, the decision contained important hints about how the justices will approach the term’s more significant Voting Rights Act case: one that concerns Section 5 of the act, which requires jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to obtain the federal government’s permission before changing voting procedures. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the controlling opinion on Monday and will almost certainly be in the majority in the next case, signaled that he was alert to the legacy of racial discrimination and in favor of only incremental steps in cutting back on the sweep of voting rights protections. “Racial discrimination and racially polarized voting are not ancient history, ” Justice Kennedy said. But the goal of the Voting Rights Act, he continued, was to “hasten the waning of racism in American politics” rather than to “ entrench racial differences.” In all, said Heather Gerken, a law professor at Yale, Justice Kennedy’s statements “bode well for the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act” in the case to be argued in April, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder, No. 08-322. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/washington/10votes.html?ref=todayspaper --

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