Ruling May Change Racial Makeup of States’ Courts

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a key section of the Voting Rights Act covers judicial elections, a decision that offers the prospect of transforming the racial makeup of state courts nationwide.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court said minority voters can use the voting rights law to challenge judicial election methods that they contend diminish their ability to elect minorities to the bench.

The decision “gives us a chance to integrate the judiciary so the judiciary won’t be the last plantation of government,” said University of Virginia professor Pamela S. Karlan, who represented Louisiana voters in one of the cases decided Thursday.

The Bush Administration supported the challenges by minority voters in the Louisiana case and a companion case from Texas. Assistant Atty. Gen. John R. Dunne said the Justice Department was “extremely gratified” by the ruling “that judicial elections are fully covered by the Voting Rights Act and must not, in any way, discriminate against minority voters . . . .”

The Voting Rights Act was adopted in 1965 in response to widespread discrimination, particularly in the South, against black voters. It was expanded in 1982 to cover not only intentional discrimination but election practices that had the result of diminishing minority voting strength.

Although minorities have had success in winning legislative and executive offices, their progress in integrating state judiciaries has been markedly slower. Civil rights lawyers have employed the Voting Rights Act as a tool to change that situation in states that elect judges.