Iowa civil rights activists say Supreme Court ruling 'takes the stopper out of the bottle'

Civil rights advocates in Iowa on Tuesday called on Congress and the president to be swift in updating the Voting Rights Act after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a section aimed at protecting minority voters.

The high court, with a 5-4 vote, sided with officials from Shelby County, Ala., in finding invalid a portion of the 1965 Act that sets the formula determining which states need federal approval to change voting laws. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court majority that the formula should have been updated when Congress reauthorized the law in 2006, but it wasn't.

“Congress did not use the record it compiled to shape a coverage formula grounded in current conditions,” Roberts wrote. “It instead re-enacted a formula based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day.”

The court's ruling didn't technically strike down Section 5 of the law, requiring certain states and jurisdictions to show that any proposed election-law change doesn't discriminate against minority voters. But it did invalidate Section 4 of the Act, including the formula used to decide which states should be covered by Section 5 based on historic patterns of discrimination against minority voters.

That effectively nullifies Section 5 until Congress passes legislation setting a new formula, and it worries some civil rights advocates who think the lack of oversight will lead to more attempts to deter minorities from voting.

Iowa is not among the nine states fully covered by the section – Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. But some local advocates say the court's decision still could impact the Hawkeye State.

“It is important across the country, as well as right here in the Creative Corridor, that we protect our core values, including our right to vote,” Chad Simmons, executive director of the Cedar Rapids-based Diversity Focus, said in an emailed statement.

Diversity Focus was established in 2005 to enhance diversity in Eastern Iowa, and even though Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling doesn't drastically impact Iowa, Simmons said, “We still have issues around discrimination that need to be addressed.”

“Iowa has always been at the forefront in civil rights through both our laws and our actions,” he said. “From marriage equality in 2009 to being one of the first states to desegregate schools in 1867, Iowa has always been a leader in protecting the rights of people.”

Randall Wilson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said he's concerned about the indirect effects the ruling might have on Iowa.

If states like Texas, for example, are allowed to manipulate electoral district boundaries in an attempt to gain an edge for a political party or hinder a demographic group, political power among minorities could be hindered.

“This, at least temporarily, takes the stopper out of the bottle, and we can expect that behavior to worsen rather than improve,” he said. “There is no oversight now.”

And, Wilson said, he's not confident in Congress' ability to update the Act.

“I think the odds are low,” he said. “They have tried to fix this before and failed.”

University of Iowa law professor Randall Bezanson agreed that Congress is not likely to agree on updated language, meaning the court's decision could have a national impact – if there proves to be jurisdictions where racism still plays a role.

But, he said, complainants still can file lawsuits under the Act alleging discrimination. The only difference is the burden of proof. Before, according to Bezanson, the covered states had to show that discrimination didn't play a role. Now, he said, the complainant has to show that it did.

“The truth is, we don't know what the effect of this will be,” Bezanson said. “But I guess we'll be finding out.”

In response to the court's decision on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said he was “deeply disappointed,” and he too called on Congress to pass a new law ensuring equal access to voting polls.

The action “upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent,” Obama said in a statement.

The law's challengers in Shelby County had argued that systematic obstruction that once warranted treating the South differently is over and additional screening should be stopped. The Obama administration had argued that the provision still is necessary to deter voter discrimination.

Voting rights have remained a hot topic of late, and during the 2012 presidential election, challenges were heard nationwide to proposed voter identification laws and redrawn districts.

In Iowa, Secretary of State Matt Schultz has vowed to uncover voter fraud, and two civil rights groups earlier this year sued Schultz in an effort to halt a new state rule allowing people to be removed from voter registration lists if their citizenship is in question.

In response to Tuesday's ruling, Iowa Secretary of State spokesman Chad Olsen said the office doesn't have a comment because Iowa wasn't subject to the section of the Act that was struck down.

Reuters contributed to this report.