NAMUDNO v. Mukasey
Court Cases

– 05/30/08

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Federal District Court handed down its decision in NAMUDNO v. Mukasey on May 30, 2008, which involved a constitutional challenge to the Voting Rights Act, perhaps the country’s single most successful piece of civil rights legislation. In an effort to avoid its obligations under the law, a small utility district in Austin, TX brought a sweeping challenge to the Voting Rights Act, claiming that Congress did not have the power to enact Section 5, a key provision of the Act.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires certain designated states and local governments to “preclear” any proposed changes to their voting systems with the Department of Justice before the changes go into effect. The purpose of the preclearance process is to make sure that the changes in election practices do not have a detrimental effect on the voting rights of racial, ethnic, or language minorities. The preclearance requirement has been one of the most successful provisions of the Voting Rights Act since its conception in 1965 because it has been instrumental in deterring and preventing many voting changes that would have harmed minority electoral participation and representation.

The entire state of Texas is covered by this preclearance requirement, which means that all of the political subunits within Texas must also comply with it. The Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 (“NAMUDNO”), the entity that unsuccessfully challenged the Act, is a small political subunit formed in the late 1980s at the northern edge of Travis County to provide specified utilities to the largely wealthy and white residents of the area. In 1990, NAMUDNO’s population consisted of twelve people. Almost 20 years later, it still has a comparatively small population, comprising less than 1% of Travis County’s overall population. NAMUDNO is still significantly less racially and ethnically diverse than Travis County as a whole.

Irrespective of the fact that NAMUDNO’s compliance with the preclearance requirement costs very little time and only about $233 a year, NAMUDNO filed a challenge to the Voting Rights Act eight days after Congress reauthorized its temporary provisions, including Section 5.  NAMUDNO’s legal argument was two-fold: first, it sought to avail itself of a provision in the Voting Rights Act allowing certain political subdivisions within covered jurisdictions to “bail-out” in specific conditions, even though those conditions were not satisfied in this case; and second, assuming it lost its request to bail out of the preclearance requirement, it asked that the entirety of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act be struck down as unconstitutional.

On May 15, 2007, the Brennan Center filed an amicus brief in support of defendant and defendant-intervenors’ motion for summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to defend the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. The Center’s brief argued that Congress’s decision to reauthorize Section 5 should be afforded great deference from the courts because it comes under Congress’s power to enforce the 15th Amendment. Congress is entitled to a great deal of latitude when acting pursuant to its 15th Amendment enforcement powers because it is acting to protect a fundamental right and prevent an injury based on account of race.

The Court unanimously agreed and rejected NAMUDNO’s challenge.

Selected documents can be found below. All legal documents related to case may be found here.

District Court Papers

Press Clips

Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections