2020 Democratic Presidential candidate and Sen. Kamala Harris (D) is proposingaVoting Rights Act-stylepreclearance that requires DOJ approval before states/cities can enact any new laws restricting/banning abortion, going further than even proposals to codify Roe v. Wade into law. Preclearance was used to deter harmful laws restricting voting rights from being enforced, until it was defanged in the Shelby County v. Holder ruling at the Supreme Court in 2013.
Kamala Harris has a new plan to limit state-level abortion restrictions, and it’s modeled after the Voting Rights Act.
Under Harris’s proposal, states whose abortion-related laws have recently been struck down by courts for violating Roe v. Wade would have to obtain federal approval from the Justice Department before they’re able to implement any new abortion laws.
It’s similar to a key provision of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which required states that had implemented discriminatory voting practices in the past to get Justice Department clearance to enforce additional laws. As a result of this requirement, the department blocked 86 election-related updates that could have disenfranchised people of color between 1998 and 2013, according to Harris’s campaign.
The California senator and 2020 contender is set to unveil this proposal during an MSNBC town hall on Tuesday night, a move that comes in the wake of multiple states passing severe restrictions to reproductive rights, including a near-total ban on abortion in Alabama.
- Under the plan, states and localities will be subject to the preclearance requirement if they have a pattern of violating Roe v. Wade in the preceding 25 years. For example, violations will include settlements or final findings by a court that a law or practice runs afoul of Roe, such as rulings in South Carolina, Iowa, and Georgia.
- While the Supreme Court’s partisan majority gutted the Voting Rights Act on grounds the preclearance formula was purportedly “outdated,” it explicitly invited Congress to update the formula along these lines.
- From 1965 to 2013, preclearance under the Voting Rights Act prevented hundreds of discriminatory laws and practices from going into effect. Just as states and localities enacted facially neutral measures to suppress the right to vote – including literacy tests, poll taxes, photo ID laws, and the closure of polling locations – states have similarly done so to limit reproductive rights – including placing targeted restrictions on abortion providers, requiring waiting periods, and imposing medically unnecessary doctor supervision requirements. A preclearance requirement will make it harder for states to implement these dangerous and deadly laws and practices. Like the blatant voter suppression the Voting Rights Act was designed to prevent, these restrictions on abortion fall disproportionately on people of color.
Amid a national debate over abortion rights, Sen. Kamala Harris on Tuesday rolled out a new proposal aimed at stopping some state laws that restrict abortion by preventing them from going into effect in the first place.
Harris pledged that, if elected President, she would create a preclearance requirement for "states and localities with a history of unconstitutionally restricting access to abortion," according to a fact sheet released by her campaign.Her "Reproductive Rights Act" would shift the burden away from abortion providers who have to file suit against the states to stop new laws; instead, it would require states to prove their laws are constitutional.[...]The preclearance requirement in Harris' abortion policy is similar to the one created in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, known as section 5. The VRA preclearance requirement prohibited nine states and scores of municipalities determined to have a history of discriminatory practices from changing any voting laws without preapproval from the federal government.In 2013, the Supreme Court determined that section 5 of was "outdated" and that the country had changed. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion that Congress, using updated data, was free to impose federal oversight on states where voting rights were at risk. Congress has yet to agree where federal oversight is needed and has not passed updates to the Voting Rights Act.