In “The Voting Rights Act is outmoded, unworkable” [NLJ, Feb. 27], Ilya Shapiro contends that the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, but wholly ignores that the plain language of the 15th Amendment gives Congress broad power to prevent and deter racial discrimination in voting.
The framers of the 15th Amendment gave Congress the power to protect the right to vote free from racial discrimination “by appropriate legislation,” recognizing that states would contrive new rules to frustrate the command of the 15th Amendment and that Congress had to have powerful tools, like the Voting Rights Act, to ensure that the right to vote was fully enjoyed by all Americans, regardless of race. Shapiro’s argument is out of line with the Constitution’s balance of powers, which gives to Congress, not the courts, the power to choose the means to rid the nation of the scourge of racial discrimination in voting.
