簡介：
Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder
（Holder為現任司法部總檢察長）
投票權法(Voting Right Acts)禁止剝奪少數族裔的投票權，北卡州政府此次提出的訴
狀以州內非洲裔佔39%的州級選區為例，認為應該把少數族裔劃歸在同一個選區，避免
多數族裔（白人）壟斷議席而讓少數族裔無法推出希望的人選。
最高法院以5:4駁回北卡的訴求，明確認定只有少數族裔人口超過一半時才有基於族裔
分佈而有重劃選區的必要。
（2010年的時候將要進行10年一次的人口普查並重劃選區，觀察家認為這對仰賴少數
族裔的民主黨不利，尤其是在南方）
多數意見由甘迺迪大法官執筆，羅伯茲首席大法官與阿利托大法官簽署，史卡利亞與
托馬士大法官表示贊同。反對意見書由蘇特大法官執筆，史蒂文斯大法官、金士堡大
法官與布瑞爾大法官列名。
（附註：按照意識形態分佈，持反對意見的四位大法官是現在最高法院的自由派，執
筆多數意見的甘迺迪大法官是Swing Vote，贊同他的另外四位大法官是保守派）
另外一個更重要的「投票權法」訴案將在下個月聽審，以決定有種族歧視紀錄的16個
州是否需要事先批准才能更改選舉進程。同時，最高法院駁回亞利桑納等14個州的訴
狀，明確表達不允許以地址為由禁止獨立派人士競選。
世界日報中文版的濃縮：
http://udn.com/NEWS/WORLD/WOR6/4780693.shtml
紐約時報：
Justices, 5-4, Set Limit on Sweep of Voting Law
Published: March 9, 2009
WASHINGTON — Only election districts in which minorities make up at least
half of the voting-age population are entitled to the protections of a part
of the Voting Rights Act that seeks to ensure and preserve minority voting
power, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
Officials in North Carolina had argued that the act required them to help
maintain black influence at the voting booth by creating a district that
included about 39 percent of the black voting-age population. The theory was
that the law protected black voters who joined with white “crossover voters”
to elect a candidate of the black voters’ choice. The court rejected that
argument by a 5-to-4 vote.
Congress did not specify what percentage of minority voters in a district
would call for the protections of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
when it later prohibited what courts have termed “vote dilution.” And the
Supreme Court until now had avoided picking a number.
The district at issue in the case, which the North Carolina General Assembly
created in 2003, was the consequence of an effort to preserve minority voting
power notwithstanding changing demographics and legal concerns about the
district’s shape. North Carolina officials settled on combining parts of two
counties to create a relatively compact district that they said maintained “
an adequate representation of black voters,” which was, in their view, 39
percent.
In rejecting the district, the Supreme Court effectively reduced the number
of voting districts in which the Voting Rights Act will mandate that
minorities play a dominant role. The bright-line 50 percent rule also makes
litigation over the legality of particular districts less likely.
“The decision turns 50 percent into a magic number,” said Richard L. Hasen,
who teaches election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Richard H. Pildes, a law professor at New York University whose work the
justices cited many times in the decision Monday, said that current events,
including the fact that both major political parties are led by
African-Americans, had complicated the legal landscape, creating “tremendous
pressure on a statute that was primarily structured for an earlier era in
which blacks were completely excluded from office.”
The decision resolved a question the court had left open in earlier
decisions, and it touched off a sharp debate among the justices about how
best to protect minority voting rights without cementing racially polarized
voting.
In dissent, Justice David H. Souter — writing for himself and Justices
Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens — said the
upshot of the decision would be more racial polarization. It will require
states “to pack black voters” into districts in which minorities make up
the majority, Justice Souter said, “contracting the number of districts
where racial minorities are having success in transcending racial divisions.”
Nonetheless, some legal experts said the impact of the decision might be
relatively minor. “How many districts will not be drawn as a result of this
decision?” asked Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Columbia. “The
answer is very few.”
Whatever its practical impact, the decision contained important hints about
how the justices will approach the term’s more significant Voting Rights Act
case: one that concerns Section 5 of the act, which requires jurisdictions
with a history of racial discrimination to obtain the federal government’s
permission before changing voting procedures.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the controlling opinion on Monday and
will almost certainly be in the majority in the next case, signaled that he
was alert to the legacy of racial discrimination and in favor of only
incremental steps in cutting back on the sweep of voting rights protections.
“Racial discrimination and racially polarized voting are not ancient history,
” Justice Kennedy said. But the goal of the Voting Rights Act, he continued,
was to “hasten the waning of racism in American politics” rather than to “
entrench racial differences.”
In all, said Heather Gerken, a law professor at Yale, Justice Kennedy’s
statements “bode well for the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act”
in the case to be argued in April, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility
District v. Holder, No. 08-322.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/washington/10votes.html?ref=todayspaper
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