"Impotent Figureheads"? State Sovereignty, Federalism, and the Constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act After Lopez v. Monterey County and City of Boerne v. Flores

Comment by John Matthew Guard

The Supreme Court has never clearly defined Congress's power, under the Enforcement Clauses of the Reconstruction Amendments, to burden neutral state laws that may have a discriminatory effect, but are themselves not constitutional violations. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act represents one of the most burdensome and expansive regulations of a traditional state activity, redistricting, by a discriminatory effects standard. Section 2 imposes federalism costs on the states, as they maneuver between the floor of race consciousness mandated by section 2 and the prohibition on race consciousness contained in the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 2, therefore, presents the court with an opportunity to define better the boundaries between permissible and impermissible federal power.


About the Author

John Matthew Guard. J.D. candidate 2000, Tulane University School of Law; B.A. 1997, Florida State University.

Citation

74 Tul. L. Rev. 329 (1999)