No. 8

Administering Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act After Shelby County

Christopher S. Elmendorf* & Douglas M. Spencer**

Until the Supreme Court put an end to it in Shelby County v. Holder, section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was widely regarded as an ef­fective, low-cost tool for blocking potentially discriminatory changes to election laws and administrative practices. The provision the Supreme Court left standing, section 2, is generally seen as expensive, cumber­some, and almost wholly ineffective at blocking changes before they take ef­fect. This Article...

With Congress divided over comprehensive immigration reform, federal and subfederal actors have stepped into the breach. In 2012 and 2014, in an effort to counter congressional paralysis, President Barack Obama extended deferred action to millions of undocumented noncitizen children and their parents. In doing so, he reignited debates about the constitutional boundaries of executive power. Among other things, these debates have highlighted the...

In 1970, Congress enacted the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to address concerns that inadequate safeguards existed to protect consumers in their interactions with credit reporting agencies. Government regulation of credit reporting is critical because the structure of the credit reporting industry does not adequately incentivize credit reporting agencies to maintain accuracy in consumers’ credit reports. Since the enactment of the FCRA, the...