Facts—Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to combat systematic discrimination against African American voters in a number of states. In certain areas, where voting had been suppressed, the law provided for the suspension of literacy tests, for the assignment of federal voting registrars, and for the suspension of all new voting regulations without prior federal approval. Because this case involved a dispute between a state and a citizen of another state, it was a case of original jurisdiction that went directly to the

U.S. Supreme Court.

Question—Are the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 legitimate exercises of congressional powers to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment?

Decision—Yes.

Reasons—C.J. Warren (8–1). The purpose of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was “to banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting, which has infected the electoral process in parts of our country for nearly a century.” Congress adopted the law after extensive hearings and by wide margins. There has been a long history of discrimination in voting against African Americans, and individual suits had proved to be costly and not particularly effective. The Fifteenth Amendment was designed to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, and the enforcement clause of the amendment (Section 2) allows Congress to adopt any rational means to effectuate the aims of the amendment. Congress had the right to tailor its legislation to those areas where it found direct evidence of voting discrimination. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of literacy tests in Lassiter v. Northampton County Board of Elections, 360 U.S. 45 (1959), it decided in this same case that a test that appeared to be “fair on its face” might “be employed to perpetuate that discrimination which the Fifteenth Amendment was designed to uproot.” Allowing such tests to remain in place where they had been applied in a discriminatory fashion, “would freeze the effect of past discrimination in favor or unqualified white registrants.” Although the suspension of new voting requirements might be considered “an uncommon exercise of congressional power . . . the Court has recognized that exceptional conditions can justify legislative measures not otherwise appropriate.”

In a partial concurrence and a partial dissent, J. Black opposed Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required states to get prior approval for changes in their voting regulations. He viewed this requirement as inconsistent with the idea of federalism and argued that it treated the states as though they “are little more than conquered provinces.”