‘Today, the majority finally dismantled the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act in this circuit, leaving four decades of en banc precedent flattened in its wake.’
‘For most of its length and much of its storied history, the Rio Grande has been little more than a creek with an excellent publicist.’
Attorneys for the state argue that the voting ban is a ‘nonpunitive voting regulation’ and that, even if it did constitute punishment, it isn’t cruel and unusual.
An Aug. 4 ruling held that denying voting rights violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
