Shelby County gutting the Voting Rights Act preceded new restrictive voter-ID laws.

Evidence

Fast-forward to 2013. The Supreme Court struck down a key provision in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Court held that Section Four, which determined which states must receive clearance before making any changes to voting procedures, was unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts was clear about the reasoning of the majority. “Our country has changed,” he wrote. “[T]he conditions that originally justified the measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.” The Court was claiming that the problem the Voting Rights Act sought to resolve was, for the most part, settled. Meanwhile, state after state, many in the covered jurisdictions, passed restrictive voter-identification laws that disproportionately affected black voters. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 106

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s purpose of judging Glaude’s argument’s aging post-Ferguson/post-Obama; the 2013 Shelby County ruling is the constitutional backdrop for the ‘blank-out ballot’ debate.