T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F H O U S T O N L A W C E N T E RH O U S T O N L A W R E V I E W

I S P L E A S E D T O P R E S E N T

CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY TO EXTEND AND AMEND THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT

F e a t u r i n g

PAMELA S. KARLANKenneth and Harle

Montgomery Professor

of Public Interest Law

Stanford Law School

T H U R S D A Y

N O V E M B E R 1 6 , 2 0 0 6

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S E C T I O N 5 S Q U A R E D :

The Voting Rights Act, signed by President

Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, has subsequently been

extended and expanded in scope three times by

Congress. Congress has again recently amended and

extended several critical provisions of the Voting

Rights Act . Section 5 of the Act requires jurisdictions,

including Texas, with a histor y of depressed political

participation and restrictive voting laws to obtain the

approval of the federal government before making

any changes in their election practices. Section 203

requires jurisdictions with large numbers of citizens

with limited English proficienc y to make ballot

materials available in languages other than English.

In light of these recent changes, Professor Karlan

addresses a critical question, already being raised

before the courts : have recent changes in legal

doctrine undercut congressional authority to amend

and extend the Voting Rights Act? Professor Karlan

argues that the changes in legal doctrine do not

vitiate congressional authority, and that the Voting

Rights Act continues to satisf y the Supreme Court’s

construction of congressional enforcement powers

under the Reconstruction Amendments. She also

goes further to suggest that the Court’s decisions

under the elections clause of Article I , § 4 and under

the equal protection clause with respect to political

gerr ymanders reinforce the Act’s constitutionality.

Professor Karlan discusses the need for federal

protection of the fundamental right to vote, noting that

universal adult citizen suffrage has yet to be realized.

c b

PROTECTING MINORITY VOTERS:

IS THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT WITHIN THE AUTHORITY OF

CONGRESS OR AN ENCROACHMENT ON STATE SOVEREIGNTY?

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PAMELA S. KARLANKenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest LawStanford Law School

PAMELA S. KARLAN is the Kenneth and Harle

Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law

at Stanford Law School, where she also co-

directs the school’s Supreme Court Litigation

Clinic. Karlan received her B.A., M.A.

(history), and J.D. from Yale. She clerked for

Judge Abraham Sofaer of the Southern District

of N.Y. and Justice Harry Blackmun of the

Supreme Court of the United States before

serving as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP

Legal Defense and Educational Fund. With the

NAACP, she specialized in voting rights and

employment discrimination litigation. From 2003 to 2005, she served

as a member of the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Karlan’s primary scholarly interests involve constitutional law, litigation

and regulation of the political process. She is the co-author of several

leading casebooks, including Constitutional Law, The Law of Democracy:

Legal Structure of the Political Process, and Civil Rights Actions: Enforcing

the Constitution, as well as dozens of scholarly articles. Her voting rights

scholarship has been cited repeatedly by the Supreme Court and by other

federal courts. Karlan has participated in extensive pro bono litigation,

representing civil rights and civil liberties groups, minority voters, and

elected officials. She assisted in the efforts to extend and amend the

Voting Rights Act of 1965. On the basis of her earlier voting rights

work, the American Lawyer named her one of its Public Sector 45, a

group of young lawyers “actively using their law degrees to change lives.”

ELLEN D. KATZProfessor of LawTh e University of Michigan Law School

ELLEN D. KATZ teaches and writes in the areas

of property, voting rights and elections,

legal history, and equal protection. Prior

to joining the University of Michigan Law

School faculty in 1999, she practiced as an

attorney with the appellate sections of the

U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment

and Natural Resources Division and Civil

Division. Katz served as a judicial clerk

for Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme

Court of the United States and for Judge

Judith W. Rogers of the U.S. Court of Appeals

for the D.C. Circuit. She earned her B.A.

in history, summa cum laude and Phi Beta

Kappa, from Yale College and her J.D. from

Yale Law School. While working towards

her J.D., she served as an articles editor

of The Yale Law Journal. Her professional

work includes a detailed empirical study of

litigation under the Voting Rights Act and

articles published in prestigious law reviews,

such as the University of Pennsylvania

Law Review and the Michigan Law Review.

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NINA PERALESSouthwest Regional Counsel

Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)

NINA PERALES is the Southwest Regional Counsel for MALDEF

in San Antonio, Texas. In that role, she directs MALDEF’s

litigation, advocacy and public education in ten Southwestern

states, including Texas. Ms. Perales received a B.A. from Brown

University and earned her J.D. from Columbia University School

of Law in 1990. Prior to joining MALDEF, Ms. Perales served

for fi ve years as an Associate Counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal

Defense and Education Fund in New York City.

Ms. Perales specializes in voting rights litigation, including

redistricting and vote dilution challenges. She served as lead

counsel for Latino plaintiff s in the redistricting cases in Texas in

2001. Th ese cases secured a redistricting plan that increased by

four the number of Latino-majority districts for elections to the

Texas House of Representatives. Ms. Perales was lead counsel for

Latino intervenors in Arizona in 2003 and successfully defended

the Latino-majority Congressional District 4 against an attempt to

dismantle this district. On March 1, 2006, Ms. Perales successfully

argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Latino vote dilution

challenge to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan. She

persuaded the Court, and in June, the Court struck down Texas’

redistricting plan as a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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SCHEDULE

10:00 A.M.O P E N I N G R E M A R K S

Professor Laura E. Oren

Law Foundation Professor

University of Houston Law Center

10:10 A.M.K E Y N O T E A D D R E S S

Pamela S. Karlan

10:40 A.M.C O M M E N TA R Y

Ellen D. Katz

10:55 A.M.C O M M E N TA R Y

Nina Perales

11:10 A.M.R E S P O N S E

Pamela S. Karlan

11:20 A.M. D I S C U S S I O N

Professor Laura E. Oren will also moderate the discussion.

THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL HOUSTON LAW REVIEW

Frankel LectureSECTION 5 SQUARED:

CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORITY TO EXTEND AND AMEND THE VOTING

RIGHTS ACT

ATTENDING THE HOUSTON LAW REVIEW FRANKEL LEC TURE WILL EARN

T WO HOURS OF PAR TICIPATOR Y SKILLS MCLE CREDIT.

To register for the lecture, kindly RSVP to 713.743.2201 or Briefcase@uh.edu.

Professor Karlan’s article and the commentaries will be published in a symposium

edition of the Houston Law Review: Volume 44, Issue 1, 2007.

For more information, please contact AMY LUSIGNAN at the Houston Law Review at

713.743.2250.PARKING IS AVAILABLE IN LOT 19B.

2006

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