District Court hears oral argument in voting rights case

Today a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard oral argument in CIR’s historic challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  CIR claims that Section 5, which requires many Southern and other jurisdictions to maximize the voting strength of minorities, is an unconstitutional federally-mandated racial preference in voting.

The same district judge who heard argument today had dismissed the case almost a year ago, ruling that only governmental entities, rather than the individual voters and candidates CIR represents, had standing to challenge Section 5.  The D.C. Circuit Court of appeals later overturned that ruling and returned the case to the district court.  Whichever way the district court rules this time, the case will be appealed again to the D.C. Circuit.