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米国における投票権法をめぐる連邦―州関係の展開 :「事前審査条項」をめぐる連邦司法省と州政府の関係を中心に

The Voting Rights Act and U.S. Federal-State Relations : How the American States Have Been "Precleared" by U.S. Department of Justice

国際文化学研究 : 神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科紀要

46

57*-89*

神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科

2016-07

2016-10-21

The enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark development in the US civil rights movement and the act has been updated to protect American citizens’ right to vote, particularly African Americans and Hispanics in the South. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, known as the “preclearance” provision, requires certain states and political subdivisions (“covered jurisdictions” in Section 4) to seek approval from the Justice Department before changing voting laws or maps. This section has been inevitably controversial. While defenders of the law insist that federal oversight is still needed on voting procedures, the opponents maintain that the provision is out of date, no longer needed, and unfairly targets certain parts of the country, especially the Southern states. In concert with the arguments of the opponents, the Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that Section 5 preclearance was unconstitutional. This article provides a mixed interpretation of the effectiveness of Section 5 based on the data disclosed by the U.S. Department of Justice. While the numbers of the rejections by DOJ of the state-proposed changes in voting rules have been drastically decreased since 2000, several states, such as Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Mississippi, continue to enact controversial bills in terms of civil and human rights and have been fighting with DOJ. As Chief Justice Roberts said, “Section 5 of the Act required States to obtain federal permission before enacting any law related to voting—a drastic departure from basic principles of federalism.” However, since relatively limited of states show a tendency to formulate “discriminatory” laws, some sort of method for federal oversight, such as proposed in the Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2015, is still in need.

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