The Chief Justice on the Spot

The New York Times
Published: January 8, 2009
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON

A CASE sitting quietly in the Supreme Court’s in-basket promises to tell us more than almost any other about John G. Roberts Jr. and his evolution from spear carrier in the Reagan revolution to chief justice of the United States — and in the process set the direction of the debate over race and politics for years to come.
The question is whether Congress acted within its constitutional authority two years ago when it extended a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for 25 years. An appeal challenging the act’s reauthorized Section 5, a provision that requires certain states and localities to receive federal permission before making any change in election procedures, awaits the justices when they return today from a holiday recess.
On the surface, this case appears an unlikely judicial bellwether. Extending the life of the “preclearance” provision, considered one of the civil rights movement’s crowning legislative accomplishments, is hardly novel. This was the fourth extension, in fact, and the second for a 25-year duration; the Supreme Court, which upheld the original Voting Rights Act in 1966, approved an earlier extension of Section 5 in 1980.
Nor does the issue appear fueled by the partisanship or ideological divisions that the current Supreme Court so often mirrors. The latest extension passed the Republican-controlled Congress overwhelmingly in 2006. President Bush promptly signed it into law, and a special panel of three federal judges upheld it last May.
Given all that, what about this case makes it a potentially defining moment for Chief Justice Roberts?
To answer that question requires seeing the appeal, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Mukasey, for the politically charged case it really is. The seeming unanimity that greeted the extension of Section 5 in 2006 was a facade, masking deep divisions over whether to continue requiring all or parts of 16 states, most in the South, to receive Justice Department or federal court permission before moving a polling place or changing a registration deadline. Was a measure approved 40 years ago as a remedy for the suppression of minority votes still appropriate?
Many Republicans, most notably some Southern senators, thought not. But they allowed the extension to pass on the assumption that the Supreme Court would eventually answer the question, relieving them of the political cost of dismantling an iconic statute. Days after the extension became law, the anticipated legal challenge was filed by a well-connected Texas Republican lawyer representing what is surely one of the most obscure jurisdictions to be covered by Section 5, a sewer district that serves 3,500 residents of Travis County, Tex.
The Republicans understood recent trends at the court to be working in their favor, and they may be right. The case serves up to the court a fascinating brew of two of the most freighted issues in constitutional law, race and federalism — or, to put it another way, individual rights and constitutional structure.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/opinion/09greenhouse.html?_r=1&th&emc=th