The Lawyers’ Committee Wins Landmark VRA Case

by Jon Greenbaum

A special three-judge panel in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia today issued a landmark ruling upholding the reauthorization of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In a unanimous decision written by Judge David Tatel, the panel squarely rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006, which extended for 25 years the preclearance requirement contained in Section 5 as well as other important provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

"We applaud the Court for validating the critically important decision of Congress to reauthorize Section 5. This multi-year effort was a top priority for the Lawyers’ Committee and for the civil rights community as a whole and we could not be more pleased with the outcome," Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Executive Director Barbara Arnwine.

Click here to read the Lawyers’ Committee’s statement.