Trump & Sessions vs. SCOTUS on Citizens United, Voting Rights

Only one Supreme Court Justice needs to change his mind in order to overturn "Citizens United" and "Shelby v. Holder" (the 2013 SOCTUS decree that gutting the Voting Rights Act), and in part 3 of our series, Gerald Hebert shares with us which one he thinks it might be.

Defenders of equal justice under law are demoralized over the fact that president-elect Donald Trump has been awarded the Supreme Court appointment that, constitutionally would have belonged to President Barack Obama. And, Trump's pick for U.S. Attorney General, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, has a voting record that indicates deep skepticism about laws that protect the rights of minorities. For the next four years, American's minority rights advocates will be forced to ask the federal courts for protection from an executive branch that will likely be fighting against voting rights rather than for them. How will the courts respond?

This is 3rd and final installment of Eric Byler's ( ) interview with Hebert, the former Department of Justice attorney whose testimony helped to sink Jeff Sessions' appointment to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hebert works at The Campaign Legal Center, where he filed amicus briefs on behalf of the United States in all 3 of the decisions summarized below

Citizens United v. FEC — January 21, 2010

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on January 21, 2010 struck down the 60-year-old federal prohibition on corporate independent expenditures in candidate elections in Citizens United v. FEC. By a vote of 8-1, however, the Supreme Court, upheld the electioneering communications disclosure provisions that were enacted as a part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). In finding the longstanding corporate prohibition unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy writing for the majority overturned part of the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in McConnell v. FEC (2003) and all of its decision in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990), both of which had upheld the constitutionality of restrictions on corporate expenditure. Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor.

Shelby County v. Holder — June 25, 2013

The Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that the coverage formula in Section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which was used to determine the states and political subdivisions subject to Section 5 pre-clearance, was unconstitutional. Section 5 is the part of the Voting Rights Act that requires certain jurisdictions to demonstrate to either the Attorney General or a federal court in Washington, D.C., that any proposed voting change is not discriminatory, before that change can be implemented. Thus, while the Court did not invalidate the preclearance mechanism in the Voting Rights Act per se, it effectively halted its use by invalidating the formula that determined which places were subject to the preclearance obligation.

McCutcheon v. FEC — April 2, 2014

The Republican National Committee and donor Shaun McCutcheon brought suit to challenge the $74,600 aggregate limit on contributions to non-candidate committees and the $48,600 aggregate limit on contributions to candidate committees in a two-year election cycle. The Supreme Court in 1976 had upheld the predecessor version of the aggregate limits in Buckley v. Valeo. On April 2, 2014, the Supreme Court struck down the aggregate limits, holding that the aggregate limits did not meaningfully prevent circumvention of the base limits or otherwise prevent quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. The Supreme Court, however, declined the petitioners’ request that it change the standard of review applicable to contributions limits.