Nathaniel Persily: Is the Voting Rights Act Doomed?

Nathaniel Persily is a professor of law and political science at Columbia.

DOES the re-election of the first black president mean the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unnecessary and perhaps unconstitutional? The Supreme Court’s decision last week to consider a constitutional challenge to a key section of the act suggests that a perverse outcome of the 2012 campaign may be that President Obama’s victory spells doom for the civil rights law most responsible for African-American enfranchisement.

The central question in the constitutional debate is whether times have changed enough in the nearly five decades since the act’s passage to suggest that the law has outlived its usefulness. The unprecedented flexing of racial minorities’ political muscle on Nov. 6 does make it clear how much times have changed. But a campaign marred by charges of voter suppression and Election Day mishaps also makes the need for federal protection of voting rights clearer than ever....