South Carolina v. Katzenbach 383 U.S. 301 (1966)

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SOUTH CAROLINA v. KATZENBACH 383 U.S. 301 (1966)

The decision upheld the constitutionality of portions of the voting rights act of 1965. Southern states attacked, as an intrusion upon state sovereignty and on other grounds, portions of the act suspending tests or devices used to measure voter qualifications, barring new voter qualifications pending approval by federal authorities, providing for the appointment of federal voting examiners to register voters, and determining which states and political subdivisions were subject to the act's coverage. In sustaining the legislation under the fifteenth amendment, the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice earl warren, rejected the argument that Congress could do no more than forbid violations of the Fifteenth Amendment and must leave the fashioning of remedies for violations to the courts. Congressional findings that case-by-case litigation was inaduquate to vindicate voting rights justified the decision "to shift the advantage of time and inerta from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims."

Theodore Eisenberg
(1986)

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South Carolina v. Katzenbach 383 U.S. 301 (1966)

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