Court Affirms Voting Rights Act Exemption

Texas District Allowed To Change Election Rules Without Feds' Approval; Special Ed Parents Win, Fish Lose

(CBS/AP)  Last updated 11:20 a.m. ET.

The Supreme Court has ruled narrowly in a challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act, exempting a small Texas governing authority from a key provision of the civil rights law.

The High Court, with only one justice in partial dissent, avoided the major constitutional questions raised in the case over the federal government's most powerful tool to prevent discriminatory voting changes since the mid-1960s.

At issue in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder (08-322) was whether Congress' 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act, which requires some jurisdictions to obtain Justice Department approval in advance of making changes in the way elections are conducted, was constitutional.

The law affects all or parts of 16 states, mainly in the South, with a history of discrimination in voting.

The court said Monday that a small utility district in Austin with an elected board can opt out of the advance approval requirement, reversing a lower federal court that found it could not.

"The historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable, but the Act now raises serious constitutional concerns," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion. "The preclearance requirement represents an intrusion into areas of state and local responsibility that is otherwise unfamiliar to our federal system."

In judging the constitutionality of an act of Congress, which the Court characterized as its "gravest and most delicate duty," the Justices said that some of the discriminatory conditions which had prompted the Act in the first place (and its recent renewal) have "unquestionably improved," which it said was "no doubt due in significant part to the Voting Rights Act itself, and stand as a monument to its success."

But the Court also said the Act's burdens "must be justified by current needs."

It also found that the Act differentiates between States in ways that may no longer be justified.

Part of the balancing act of this decision is the question of whether the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act - initiated to reverse past discrimination - deterred further discriminatory changes to election procedures, and so might not prevent discriminatory changes if it were repealed.

The Act gives political subdivisions the ability to "bail out" of the Act's preclearance requirements, but differences arose over the narrowness of the law's definition of "political subdivision."

In fact, since 1982, only 17 jurisdictions, out of the more than 12,000 "political subdivisions" under jurisdiction, were allowed to "bail out" of the Act.

"It is unlikely that Congress intended the provision to have such limited effect," the Court wrote.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote an opinion in the 9-0 decision. Justice Clarence Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

The opinion can be viewed here.

Reimbursement For Special Education Tuition Broadened

Parents who seek public school tuition reimbursement for placing children with needs in private schools without the public school's permission also received a victory.

The court ruled 6-3 Monday in favor of a teenage boy from Oregon whose parents sought to force their local public school district to pay the $5,200 a month it cost to send their son to a private school.

Federal law calls for school districts to reimburse students or their families for education costs when public schools do not have services that address or fulfill the students' needs. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the nation's special education students are entitled to a "free and appropriate public education."

Schools have argued that parents of special education students should have given public special education programs a chance before seeking reimbursement for private school tuition. But advocacy groups and parents of some special education students contend that forcing them to try public schools first could force children, especially poor ones, to spend time in an undesirable situation before getting the help they need.

In the case before the Supreme Court, the family of a teenage Oregon boy diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder sued the school district, saying the school did not properly address the student's learning problems. The family is seeking reimbursement for the student's tuition, which cost $5,200-a-month.

The family paid a total of $65,000 in private tuition.

In its appeal, the Forest Grove School District said students should be forced to at least give public special education programs a try before seeking reimbursement for private tuition.

Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion that the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires a school district to pay for private special ed services if the public school doesn't have appropriate services.

"We conclude that IDEA authorizes reimbursement for the cost of special education services when a school district fails to provide a FAPE and the private-school placement is appropriate, regardless of whether the child previously received special education or related services through the public school," Stevens said.

In his dissent, Justice David Souter pointed out that IDEA authorizes reimbursement in the case of "a child with a disability, who previously received special education and related services under the authority of a public agency," and likened it to a mother telling her child he could play only after completing his homework.

"If the mother did not mean that the homework had to be done, why did she mention it at all, and if Congress did not mean to restrict reimbursement authority by reference to previous receipt of services, why did it even raise the subject?" Souter wrote.

The opinion in Forest Grove School District v. T.A. (08-305) is available here.

OK To Dump Mine Waste Into Lake

The Supreme Court upheld a federal permit to dump some 4.5 million tons of waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby lake, even though all its fish would be killed.

By a 6-3 vote Monday, the justices said a federal appeals court wrongly blocked the permit on environmental grounds.

(Left: An undated photo of the entrance tunnel and water treatment facility for the Kensington Gold Mine against Lion Head Mountain near Juneau, Alaska.)

Environmentalists fear that the ruling could set a precedent for how mining waste is disposed in American lakes, streams and rivers.

The Army Corps of Engineers in 2005 issued a permit for waste disposal at the proposed Kensington mine north of Juneau. Under the plan, tailings - waste left after metals are extracted from ore - would be dumped into Lower Slate Lake.

Environmentalists sued to halt the practice, saying dumping the mine tailings in the lake would kill fish. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco blocked the permit, saying the dumping is barred by stringent Environmental Protection Agency requirements under the Clean Water Act of 1972.

Today the Supreme Court ruled that the Corps, and not EPA, had the authority to issue a permit for the discharge of mining waste.

The opinion in Coeur Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation (07-984) is available here.