Supreme Court scraps Voting Rights Act pre-clearance formula | www.myajc.com

What that means for Fulton County, whose redistricting plan is pending before the Justice Department, was not immediately clear. Laughlin McDonald, the director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, said the ruling could call into question any Justice Department pre-clearance challenge since 2006, when Congress last reauthorized the law.

As for the immediate impact, local officials are still trying to sort that out. Atlanta voting rights attorney Bryan Tyson said he expects the Justice Department to issue guidance on what will happen to pending cases in the next week. But he thinks Fulton County’s redistricting plan will take effect immediately without federal review.

 

“I think the legal effect is the Department of Justice has no basis to stop a law from going into effect,” Tyson said.

The same could apply in Macon, where elections for a new consolidated government originally scheduled for June have been delayed indefinitely by the Justice Department.

“At first blush, this looks like this is a decision we’re very happy with,” said state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon. “It means we don’t need to go through the tedious task of pre-clearance for every single small change with elections in this state.”

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