Scholarship@WashULaw
An Effects-Test Pocket Trigger?
Document Type
Blog Posting
Language
English (en)
Publication Date
2013
Publication Title
Election Law Blog
Abstract
Following Shelby County v. Holder, civil rights advocates are searching for new strategies to protect voting rights. As I argued in my 2010 Yale Law Journal Note, section 3 of the Voting Rights Act provides a roadmap for the future. Commonly called the bail-in mechanism or the pocket trigger, section 3 authorizes federal courts to place States and political subdivisions that have violated the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments under preclearance. Designed to trigger coverage in “pockets of discrimination” missed by the coverage formula, section 3 has been used to bail-in over a dozen jurisdictions, including Arkansas, New Mexico, and Los Angeles County. Although the pocket trigger has been historically overshadowed by section 5, it has garnered recent attention as a potential replacement for the coverage formula.
Keywords
Election Law, Voting Rights, Redistricting, Gerrymandering, Supreme Court, Civil Rights, Electoral Law, Political Representation, Voter Suppression
Publication Citation
Travis Crum, An Effects-Test Pocket Trigger?, Election Law Blog (Jul. 8, 2013), https://electionlawblog.org/?p=52659
Repository Citation
Crum, Travis, "An Effects-Test Pocket Trigger?" (2013). Scholarship@WashULaw. 729.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_scholarship/729
