Editing Voting Rights Act of 1965 (section)

==Legislative history==
Efforts to eliminate discriminatory election practices by litigation on a case-by-case basis by the United States Department of Justice had been unsuccessful and existing federal anti-discrimination laws were not sufficient to overcome the resistance by state officials to enforcement of the 15th Amendment. Against this backdrop Congress came to the conclusion that a new comprehensive federal bill was necessary to break the grip of state disfranchisement.<ref name=DOJvra65 /> The United States Supreme Court explained this in ''[[South Carolina v. Katzenbach]]'' (1966) with the following words:

{{blockquote|In recent years, Congress has repeatedly tried to cope with the problem by facilitating case-by-case litigation against voting discrimination. The [[Civil Rights Act of 1957]] authorized the Attorney General to seek injunctions against public and private interference with the right to vote on racial grounds. Perfecting amendments in the [[Civil Rights Act of 1960]] permitted the joinder of States as parties defendant, gave the Attorney General access to local voting records, and authorized courts to register voters in areas of systematic discrimination. [[Civil Rights Act of 1964#Title I—voting rights|Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1964]] expedited the hearing of voting cases before three-judge courts and outlawed some of the tactics used to disqualify Negroes from voting in federal elections. Despite the earnest efforts of the Justice Department and of many federal judges, these new laws have done little to cure the problem of voting discrimination. [...] The previous legislation has proved ineffective for a number of reasons. Voting suits are unusually onerous to prepare, sometimes requiring as many as 6,000 man-hours spent combing through registration records in preparation for trial. Litigation has been exceedingly slow, in part because of the ample opportunities for delay afforded voting officials and others involved in the proceedings. Even when favorable decisions have finally been obtained, some of the States affected have merely switched to discriminatory devices not covered by the federal decrees, or have enacted difficult new tests designed to prolong the existing disparity between white and Negro registration. Alternatively, certain local officials have defied and evaded court orders or have simply closed their registration offices to freeze the voting rolls. The provision of the 1960 law authorizing registration by federal officers has had little impact on local maladministration, because of its procedural complexities.<ref>{{cite web |title=South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966), at 313 and 314. Footnotes omitted. |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/383/301/ |publisher=Justia US Supreme Court Center |access-date=January 6, 2021 |date=March 7, 1966}}</ref>}}

In ''[[South Carolina v. Katzenbach]]'' (1966) the Supreme Court also held that Congress had the power to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 under its [[Congressional power of enforcement|Enforcement Powers]] stemming from the Fifteenth Amendment:

{{blockquote|Congress exercised its authority under the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] in an inventive manner when it enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. First: the measure prescribes remedies for voting discrimination which go into effect without any need for prior adjudication. This was clearly a legitimate response to the problem, for which there is ample precedent under other constitutional provisions. ''See [[Katzenbach v. McClung]],'' 379 U. S. 294, 379 U. S. 302–304; ''[[United States v. Darby Lumber Co.|United States v. Darby]], 312 U. S. 100,'' 312 U. S. 120–121. Congress had found that case-by-case litigation was inadequate to combat widespread and persistent discrimination in voting, because of the inordinate amount of time and energy required to overcome the obstructionist tactics invariably encountered in these lawsuits. After enduring nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress might well decide to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims. [...] Second: the Act intentionally confines these remedies to a small number of States and political subdivisions which, in most instances, were familiar to Congress by name. This, too, was a permissible method of dealing with the problem. Congress had learned that substantial voting discrimination presently occurs in certain sections of the country, and it knew no way of accurately forecasting whether the evil might spread elsewhere in the future. In acceptable legislative fashion, Congress chose to limit its attention to the geographic areas where immediate action seemed necessary. ''See [[McGowan v. Maryland]],'' 366 U. S. 420, 366 U. S. 427; ''Salsburg v. Maryland,'' 346 U. S. 545, 346 U. S. 550–554. The doctrine of the equality of States, invoked by South Carolina, does not bar this approach, for that doctrine applies only to [[Admission to the Union|the terms upon which States are admitted to the Union]], and not to the remedies for local evils which have subsequently appeared. ''See [[Coyle v. Smith]],'' 221 U. S. 559, and cases cited therein.<ref>{{cite web |title=South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966), at 327–329. Footnotes omitted. |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/383/301/ |publisher=Justia US Supreme Court Center |access-date=January 6, 2021 |date=March 7, 1966}}</ref>}}

===Original bill===
[[File:Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr. - Voting Rights Act.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|alt=refer to caption|[[President of the United States|United States President]] [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], and [[Rosa Parks]] at the signing of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965]]

====Senate====
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was introduced in Congress on March 17, 1965, as S. 1564, and it was jointly sponsored by Senate majority leader [[Mike Mansfield]] (D-MT) and Senate minority leader [[Everett Dirksen]] (R-IL), both of whom had worked with Attorney General Katzenbach to draft the bill's language.<ref name=congresslink>{{cite web|title=Voting Rights Act of 1965|work=The Dirksen Congressional Center|publisher=Congresslink|url=http://www.congresslink.org/print_basics_histmats_votingrights_contents.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141030140112/http://www.congresslink.org/print_basics_histmats_votingrights_contents.htm|archive-date=October 30, 2014|access-date=March 26, 2015}}</ref> Although Democrats held two-thirds of the seats in both chambers of Congress after the [[United States Senate elections, 1964|1964 Senate elections]],<ref name=Bending />{{rp|49}} Johnson worried that Southern Democrats would [[filibuster]] the legislation because they had opposed other civil rights efforts. He enlisted Dirksen to help gain [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] support. Dirksen did not originally intend to support voting rights legislation so soon after supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he expressed willingness to accept "revolutionary" legislation after learning about the police violence against marchers in Selma on Bloody Sunday.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|95–96}} Given Dirksen's key role in helping Katzenbach draft the legislation, it became known informally as the "Dirksenbach" bill.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|96}} After Mansfield and Dirksen introduced the bill, 64 additional senators agreed to cosponsor it,<ref name=Bending />{{rp|150}} with a total 46 Democratic and 20 Republican cosponsors.<ref name="acsc.lib.udel.edu">{{cite web|title=Voting Rights Act|publisher=The Association of Centers for the Study of Congress|url=http://acsc.lib.udel.edu/exhibits/show/legislation/vra|access-date=May 29, 2016}}</ref>

The bill contained several special provisions that targeted certain state and local governments: a "coverage formula" that determined which jurisdictions were subject to the Act's other special provisions ("covered jurisdictions"); a "preclearance" requirement that prohibited covered jurisdictions from implementing changes to their voting procedures without first receiving approval from the U.S. attorney general or the U.S. District Court for D.C. that the changes were not discriminatory; and the suspension of "tests or devices", such as literacy tests, in covered jurisdictions. The bill also authorized the assignment of federal examiners to register voters, and of federal observers to monitor elections, to covered jurisdictions that were found to have engaged in egregious discrimination. The bill set these special provisions to expire after five years.<ref name=Carolina />{{rp|319–320}}<ref name=democracy />{{rp|520, 524}}<ref name=RevisedBailout>{{cite journal|last=Williamson|first=Richard A.|title=The 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act: A Statutory Analysis of the Revised Bailout Provisions|journal=Washington University Law Review|year=1984|volume=62|issue=1|url=http://digitalcommons.law.wustl.edu/lawreview/vol62/iss1/2/|access-date=August 29, 2013|archive-date=September 21, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921060158/http://digitalcommons.law.wustl.edu/lawreview/vol62/iss1/2/|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{rp|5–6}}

The scope of the coverage formula was a matter of contentious congressional debate. The coverage formula reached a jurisdiction if (1) the jurisdiction maintained a "test or device" on November 1, 1964, and (2) less than 50 percent of the jurisdiction's voting-age residents either were registered to vote on November 1, 1964, or cast a [[ballot]] in the November 1964 presidential election.<ref name=Carolina />{{rp|317}} This formula reached few jurisdictions outside the [[Deep South]]. To appease legislators who felt that the bill unfairly targeted Southern jurisdictions, the bill included a general prohibition on racial discrimination in voting that applied nationwide.<ref name=1982hist>{{cite journal|last1=Boyd|first1=Thomas M.|last2=Markman|first2=Stephen J.|title=The 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act: A Legislative History|journal=Washington and Lee Law Review|year=1983|volume=40|issue=4|url=http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol40/iss4/3|access-date=August 31, 2013}}</ref>{{rp|1352}} The bill also included provisions allowing a covered jurisdiction to "bail out" of coverage by proving in federal court that it had not used a "test or device" for a discriminatory purpose or with a discriminatory effect during the 5 years preceding its bailout request.<ref name=RevisedBailout />{{rp|6}} Additionally, the bill included a "bail in" provision under which federal courts could subject discriminatory non-covered jurisdictions to remedies contained in the special provisions.<ref name=3c>Voting Rights Act of 1965 § 3(c); {{uscsub|52|10302|c}} (formerly 42 U.S.C. § 1973a(c))</ref><ref name=bail-in>{{cite journal|last=Crum|first=Travis|title=The Voting Rights Act's Secret Weapon: Pocket Trigger Litigation and Dynamic Preclearance|journal=The Yale Law Journal|year=2010|volume=119|url=http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/note/the-voting-rights-act%27s-secret-weapon:-pocket-trigger-litigation-and-dynamic-preclearance|access-date=August 27, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130830171847/http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/note/the-voting-rights-act%27s-secret-weapon:-pocket-trigger-litigation-and-dynamic-preclearance/|archive-date=August 30, 2013}}</ref>{{rp|2006–2007}}

The bill was first considered by the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]], whose chair, Senator [[James Eastland]] (D-MS), opposed the legislation with several other Southern senators on the committee. To prevent the bill from dying in committee, Mansfield proposed a [[Motion (parliamentary procedure)|motion]] to require the Judiciary Committee to report the bill out of committee by April 9, which the Senate overwhelmingly passed by a vote of 67 to 13.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|150}}<ref name="acsc.lib.udel.edu"/> During the committee's consideration of the bill, Senator [[Ted Kennedy]] (D-MA) led an effort to amend the bill to prohibit poll taxes. Although the [[Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Twenty-fourth Amendment]]—which banned the use of poll taxes in federal elections— was ratified a year earlier, Johnson's administration and the bill's sponsors did not include a provision in the voting rights bill banning poll taxes in ''state'' elections because they feared courts would strike down the legislation as unconstitutional.<ref name=democracy />{{rp|521}}<ref name=eyes />{{rp|285}} Additionally, by excluding poll taxes from the definition of "tests or devices", the coverage formula did not reach [[Texas]] or [[Arkansas]], mitigating opposition from those two states' influential [[congressional delegation]]s.<ref name=democracy />{{rp|521}} Nonetheless, with the support of [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberal]] committee members, Kennedy's amendment to prohibit poll taxes passed by a 9–4 vote. In response, Dirksen offered an amendment that exempted from the coverage formula any state that had at least 60 percent of its eligible residents registered to vote or that had a voter turnout that surpassed the national average in the preceding presidential election. This amendment, which effectively exempted all states from coverage except [[Mississippi]], passed during a committee meeting in which three liberal members were absent. Dirksen offered to drop the amendment if the poll tax ban were removed. Ultimately, the bill was reported out of committee on April 9 by a 12–4 vote without a recommendation.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|152–153}}

On April 22, the full Senate started debating the bill. Dirksen spoke first on the bill's behalf, saying that "legislation is needed if the unequivocal mandate of the Fifteenth Amendment&nbsp;... is to be enforced and made effective, and if the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] is to be made truly meaningful."<ref name=Bending />{{rp|154}} Senator [[Strom Thurmond]] (R-SC) retorted that the bill would lead to "despotism and tyranny", and Senator [[Sam Ervin]] (D-NC) argued that the bill was unconstitutional because it deprived states of their right under [[Article One of the United States Constitution#Section 2: House of Representatives|Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution]] to establish voter qualifications and because the bill's special provisions targeted only certain jurisdictions. On May 6, Ervin offered an amendment to abolish the coverage formula's automatic trigger and instead allow federal judges to appoint federal examiners to administer voter registration. This amendment overwhelmingly failed, with 42 Democrats and 22 Republicans voting against it.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|154–156}} After lengthy debate, Ted Kennedy's amendment to prohibit poll taxes also failed 49–45 on May 11.<ref name="acsc.lib.udel.edu"/> However, the Senate agreed to include a provision authorizing the attorney general to sue any jurisdiction, covered or non-covered, to challenge its use of poll taxes.<ref name=eyes />{{rp|156–157}}<ref name=RevisedBailout />{{rp|2}} An amendment offered by Senator [[Robert F. Kennedy]] (D-NY) to enfranchise English-illiterate citizens who had attained at least a sixth-grade education in a non-English-speaking school also passed by 48–19. Southern legislators offered a series of amendments to weaken the bill, all of which failed.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|159}}

On May 25, the Senate voted for [[cloture]] by a 70–30 vote, thus overcoming the threat of filibuster and limiting further debate on the bill.<ref>{{cite web|title=Senate Vote #67 in 1965: To Invoke Cloture and End Debate on S. 1564, the Voting Rights Act of 1965|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s67|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|access-date=October 14, 2013}}</ref> On May 26, the Senate passed the bill by a 77–19 vote (Democrats 47–16, Republicans 30–2); only senators representing Southern states voted against it.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|161}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Senate Vote #78 in 1965: To Pass S. 1564, the Voting Rights Act of 1965|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s78|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|access-date=October 14, 2013}}</ref>

====House of Representatives====
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[[Emanuel Celler]] (D-NY), Chair of the [[House Judiciary Committee]], introduced the Voting Rights Act in the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] on March 19, 1965, as H.R. 6400.<ref name="acsc.lib.udel.edu"/> The House Judiciary Committee was the first committee to consider the bill. The committee's ranking Republican, [[William Moore McCulloch|William McCulloch]] (R-OH), generally supported expanding voting rights, but he opposed both the poll tax ban and the coverage formula, and he led opposition to the bill in committee. The committee eventually approved the bill on May 12, but it did not file its committee report until June 1.<ref name="Bending" />{{rp|162}} The bill included two amendments from subcommittee: a penalty for private persons who interfered with the right to vote and a prohibition of all poll taxes. The poll tax prohibition gained [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|Speaker of the House]] [[John William McCormack|John McCormack]]'s support. The bill was next considered by the [[United States House Committee on Rules|Rules Committee]], whose chair, [[Howard W. Smith]] (D-VA), opposed the bill and delayed its consideration until June 24, when Celler initiated proceedings to have the bill discharged from committee.<ref name="acsc.lib.udel.edu"/> Under pressure from the bill's proponents, Smith allowed the bill to be released a week later, and the full House started debating the bill on July 6.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|163}}

To defeat the Voting Rights Act, McCulloch introduced an alternative bill, H.R. 7896. It would have allowed the attorney general to appoint federal registrars after receiving 25 serious complaints of discrimination against a jurisdiction, and it would have imposed a nationwide ban on literacy tests for persons who could prove they attained a sixth-grade education. McCulloch's bill was co-sponsored by [[House Minority Leader|House minority leader]] [[Gerald Ford]] (R-MI) and supported by Southern Democrats as an alternative to the Voting Rights Act.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|162–164}} The Johnson administration viewed H.R. 7896 as a serious threat to passing the Voting Rights Act. However, support for H.R. 7896 dissipated after [[William M. Tuck]] (D-VA) publicly said he preferred H.R. 7896 because the Voting Rights Act would legitimately ensure that African Americans could vote. His statement alienated most supporters of H.R. 7896, and the bill failed on the House floor by a 171–248 vote on July 9.<ref>{{cite web|title=House Vote #86 in 1965: To Recommit H.R. 6400, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, with Instructions to Substitute the Text of H.R. 7896 Prohibiting the Denial to Any Person of the Right to Register or to Vote Because of his Failure to Pay a Poll Tax or Any Other Such Tax, for the Language of the Committee Amendment|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h86|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|access-date=October 14, 2013}}</ref> Later that night, the House passed the Voting Rights Act by a 333–85 vote (Democrats 221–61, Republicans 112–24).<ref name=Bending />{{rp|163–165}}<ref name="acsc.lib.udel.edu"/><ref>{{cite web|title=House Vote #87 in 1965: To Pass H.R. 6400, the Voting Rights Act of 1965|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h87|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|access-date=October 14, 2013}}</ref>

====Conference committee====
The chambers appointed a [[conference committee]] to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. A major contention concerned the poll tax provisions; the Senate version allowed the attorney general to sue states that used poll taxes to discriminate, while the House version outright banned all poll taxes. Initially, the committee members were stalemated. To help broker a compromise, Attorney General Katzenbach drafted legislative language explicitly asserting that poll taxes were unconstitutional and instructed the Department of Justice to sue the states that maintained poll taxes. To assuage concerns of liberal committee members that this provision was not strong enough, Katzenbach enlisted the help of Martin Luther King Jr., who gave his support to the compromise. King's endorsement ended the stalemate, and on July 29, the conference committee reported its version out of committee.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|166–167}} The House approved this [[conference report]] version of the bill on August 3 by a 328–74 vote (Democrats 217–54, Republicans 111–20),<ref>{{cite web|title=House Vote #107 in 1965: To Agree to Conference Report on S. 1564, the Voting Rights Act|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h107|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|access-date=October 14, 2013}}</ref> and the Senate passed it on August 4 by a 79–18 vote (Democrats 49–17, Republicans 30–1).<ref name=Bending />{{rp|167}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Senate Vote #178 in 1965: To Agree to Conference Report on S. 1564, the Voting Rights Act of 1965|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/s178|work=govtrack.us|publisher=Civic Impulse, LLC|access-date=October 14, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Moholtra|first=Ajay|title=Rosa Parks Early Life & Childhood|url=http://www.rosaparksfacts.com/rosa-parks-early-life-childhood/|publisher=Rosa Park Facts.com|date=June 1, 2008|access-date=April 1, 2015}}</ref> On August 6, President Johnson signed the Act into law with [[Martin Luther King Jr.|King]], [[Rosa Parks]], [[John Lewis]], and other civil rights leaders in attendance at the signing ceremony.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|168}}

===Amendments===
{{main|Amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965}}
[[File:Bush Signs Voting Rights Act of 2006.jpg|thumb|alt=refer to caption|[[President of the United States|United States President]] [[George W. Bush]] signs amendments to the Act in July 2006]]
Congress enacted major amendments to the Act in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006. Each amendment coincided with an impending expiration of some or all of the Act's special provisions. Originally set to expire by 1970, Congress repeatedly reauthorized the special provisions in recognition of continuing voting discrimination.<ref name=Bending />{{rp|209–210}}<ref name=RevisedBailout />{{rp|6–8}} Congress extended the coverage formula and special provisions tied to it, such as the Section 5 preclearance requirement, for five years in 1970, seven years in 1975, and 25 years in both 1982 and 2006. In 1970 and 1975, Congress also expanded the reach of the coverage formula by supplementing it with new 1968 and 1972 trigger dates. Coverage was further enlarged in 1975 when Congress expanded the meaning of "tests or devices" to encompass any jurisdiction that provided English-only election information, such as ballots, if the jurisdiction had a single language minority group that constituted more than five percent of the jurisdiction's voting-age citizens. These expansions brought numerous jurisdictions into coverage, including many not in the South.<ref name=DOJsection4>{{Source-attribution|sentence=yes|{{cite web |title=Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act|publisher=U.S. Department of Justice |url=https://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/misc/sec_4.php|access-date=June 25, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231104020640/https://www.justice.gov/crt/section-4-voting-rights-act|archive-date=November 4, 2023}}}}</ref> To ease the burdens of the reauthorized special provisions, Congress liberalized the bailout procedure in 1982 by allowing jurisdictions to escape coverage by complying with the Act and affirmatively acting to expand minority [[political participation]].<ref name=democracy />{{rp|523}}

In addition to reauthorizing the original special provisions and expanding coverage, Congress amended and added several other provisions to the Act. For instance, Congress expanded the original ban on "tests or devices" to apply nationwide in 1970, and in 1975, Congress made the ban permanent.<ref name=RevisedBailout />{{rp|6–9}} Separately, in 1975 Congress expanded the Act's scope to protect language minorities from voting discrimination. Congress defined "language minority" to mean "persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives or of Spanish heritage."<ref name="VRA-14(c)(3)">Voting Rights Act of 1965 § 14(c)(3); {{uscsub|52|10310|c|3}} (formerly 42 U.S.C. § 1973l(c)(3))</ref> Congress amended various provisions, such as the preclearance requirement and Section 2's general prohibition of discriminatory voting laws, to prohibit discrimination against language minorities.<ref name=enfranchise>{{cite journal|last=Tucker|first=James Thomas|title=Enfranchising Language Minority Citizens: The Bilingual Election Provisions of the Voting Rights Act|journal=New York University Journal of Legislation and Public Policy|year=2006|volume=10|url=http://www.nyujlpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/TUCKER-ENFRANCHISING-LANGUAGE-MINORITY-CITIZENS-TEH-BILINGUAL-ELECTION-PROVISIONS-OF-THE-VOTING-RIGHTS-ACT.pdf|access-date=January 3, 2014|archive-date=October 20, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020111915/http://www.nyujlpp.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/TUCKER-ENFRANCHISING-LANGUAGE-MINORITY-CITIZENS-TEH-BILINGUAL-ELECTION-PROVISIONS-OF-THE-VOTING-RIGHTS-ACT.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{rp|199}} Congress also enacted a bilingual election requirement in Section 203, which requires election officials in certain jurisdictions with large numbers of English-illiterate language minorities to provide ballots and voting information in the language of the language minority group. Originally set to expire after 10 years, Congress reauthorized Section 203 in 1982 for seven years, expanded and reauthorized it in 1992 for 15 years, and reauthorized it in 2006 for 25 years.<ref name=CRS>{{CRS|author=Laney, Garrine P. |date=June 12, 2008|article=The Voting Rights Act of 1965, As Amended: Its History and Current Issues|url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc26107/m1/1/high_res_d/95-896_2008Jun12.pdf|access-date=September 15, 2017|format=PDF|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200212181614/https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc26107/m1/1/high_res_d/95-896_2008Jun12.pdf|archive-date=February 12, 2020}}</ref>{{rp|19–21, 25, 49}} The bilingual election requirements have remained controversial, with proponents arguing that bilingual assistance is necessary to enable recently naturalized citizens to vote and opponents arguing that the bilingual election requirements constitute costly [[unfunded mandate]]s.<ref name=CRS />{{rp|26}}

Several of the amendments responded to judicial rulings with which Congress disagreed. In 1982, Congress amended the Act to overturn the Supreme Court case ''[[Mobile v. Bolden]]'' (1980), which held that the general prohibition of voting discrimination prescribed in Section 2 prohibited only ''purposeful'' discrimination. Congress responded by expanding Section 2 to explicitly ban any voting practice that had a discriminatory ''effect'', regardless of whether the practice was enacted or operated for a discriminatory purpose. The creation of this "results test" shifted the majority of vote dilution litigation brought under the Act from preclearance lawsuits to Section 2 lawsuits.<ref name=democracy />{{rp|644–645}} In 2006, Congress amended the Act to overturn two Supreme Court cases: ''Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board'' (2000),<ref name=Reno>''Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board'', {{ussc|528|320|2000}}</ref> which interpreted the Section 5 preclearance requirement to prohibit only voting changes that were enacted or maintained for a "retrogressive" discriminatory purpose instead of any discriminatory purpose, and ''[[Georgia v. Ashcroft]]'' (2003),<ref name=Ash>''[[Georgia v. Ashcroft]]'', {{ussc|539|461|2003}}</ref> which established a broader test for determining whether a redistricting plan had an impermissible effect under Section 5 than assessing only whether a minority group could elect its preferred candidates.<ref name=Promise>{{cite journal|last=Persily|first=Nathaniel|title=The Promise and Pitfalls of the New Voting Rights Act|journal=Yale Law Journal|year=2007|volume=117|issue=2|pages=174–254| doi=10.2307/20455790 |jstor=20455790|url=http://yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act/|access-date=September 21, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926061938/http://yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/article/the-promise-and-pitfalls-of-the-new-voting-rights-act/|archive-date=September 26, 2013}}</ref>{{rp|207–208}} Since the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula as unconstitutional in ''[[Shelby County v. Holder]]'' (2013), several bills have been introduced in Congress to create a new coverage formula and amend various other provisions; none of these bills have passed.<ref>{{cite web|title=Moving Forward on the VRAA|url=http://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/voting-rights-amendment-act-2014|publisher=NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.|access-date=April 19, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr885# |title=H.R. 885: Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2015 |publisher=govtrack.us |access-date=December 27, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sensenbrenner.house.gov/2017/7/reps-sensenbrenner-and-conyers-reintroduce-bipartisan-voting-rights-amendment-act-of-2017|title=Reps. Sensenbrenner and Conyers Reintroduce Bipartisan Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2017|website=Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner|language=en|access-date=November 15, 2019|archive-date=November 15, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191115021441/https://sensenbrenner.house.gov/2017/7/reps-sensenbrenner-and-conyers-reintroduce-bipartisan-voting-rights-amendment-act-of-2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>