President Johnson’s signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 [along with the Civil Rights Act] was one of the most courageous and honorable acts in American history. Johnson knew - as he confided to aide Bill Moyers - that such an action would undermine support for the Democrat party in his native South “for a generation,” but he signed it nonetheless because he knew that injustice that Blacks faced in the Jim Crow South.

Although African-Americans had won the right to vote in a constitutional amendment passed after the Civil War in the late 1860s [Black women, of course, could not vote until passage of the suffrage amendment in 1919], Southern racists had nonetheless barred Blacks from voting through arbitrary literacy tests and imposition of a poll tax. The end of the poll tax came through a constitutional amendment passed under President Johnson; removing obstacles such as literacy tests required only Congressional action. And Johnson was able to secure that.

Congress mandated that Southern states had to end such discriminatory practices and for the first time in American history, the Voting Rights Act allowed for the federalization of elections - a state’s concern - if a certain state was seen as barring voters from exercising their constitutional rights. Even with this mandate, many members of Congress knew that many districts in the South would try to ban Blacks from voting by devising new, creative barriers. So Congress included a clause - Section 5 - that mandated that any change in electoral laws in any district had to receive approval from a federal board.

This means that even if a district wants to move around polling booths, it needs prior approval from the federal government. Because elections are a state rights concern, Section 5 was an extraordinary clause for it went beyond such getting ride of obviously abhorrently blatant discriminatory laws, but allowed for federal interference in every aspect of elections. It is because of this that Section 5 came with an end date: 1970, five years at the law was signed. But Congress kept renewing it and the next time it expires is 2031.

Recently Section 5 came up for challenge. The Economist elaborates:

...a Texan utility district (an area where the provision of services is administered by an elected board) with no history of racial discrimination asked to be released from Section 5’s strictures. A lower court said no. But by an 8-1 majority, the Supreme Court overturned its ruling on June 22nd. It did so on narrow technical grounds. But it left wide open the possibility that a future, broader challenge might succeed. Section 5 “raises serious constitutional concerns”, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. Federal intrusion must be justified by “current needs” he said, not historical ones.

Although the power subscribed to Section 5 are too board - it should not be consulted in every matter - and the Chief Justice is right that “current needs” should mandate federal intrusion, it would be a great mistake is Section 5 was stripped of its main purpose: monitoring state electoral law.

Contrary to what Chief Justice Roberts may believe, but “current needs” do require federal intrusion. Unfortunately, efforts to devise ways to undermine the vote of Blacks are not a relic of the past. Just look at the 2000 Florida election when thousands of Blacks were knocked off voting rolls all because their name matched that of a criminal with an identical or similar name. Black voters, whom vote mostly Democrat, are harassed by Republican party officials all the time through voice messages that try to confuse them of the date of voting and through intimidation tactics by hiring cops to stand by polling booths.

There are still too many people trying to hinder the votes of Blacks that Section 5 - albeit more circumscribed - is still needed. This is not the time to chip [greatly] away at it, not even in the time of Obama.