One characteristic of modern, lazy, biased amateur journalists is they often take statements and attempt to taint someone ideologically with them.  This tactic only works when you have an equally lazy and biased audience, or perhaps one not terribly bright.  One amateur blog renowned for inaccuracy and bias, called mainjustice, used Election Law Center’s description of the jurisprudence of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to do just that.  In the same paragraph they inaccurately described criticism of a certain government office where none did lie.   You’ve come to expect that in a world where you don’t need paying readers.  Thankfully most nonpaying readers have the sense to recognize flimsy work when they see it.  Flimsy?   Indeed.

So is Section 5 on the “outer frontier of the permissible exercise of federal power over the states?”  Anyone who knows this area of the law knows the answer is yes.  Which side of the frontier it is on remains to be decided by the Supreme Court.  But that it rests near the frontier of federal power isn’t open to debate, and this statement doesn’t provide a credible opportunity to taint someone when they describe the jurisprudence.   One might look at the concurrence in the Northwest Austin MUD case for some particulars, if particulars even matter to some:

“Second, because it sweeps more broadly than the substantive command of the Fifteenth Amendment , §5 pushes the outer boundaries of Congress’ Fifteenth Amendment enforcement authority. See Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 926 (1995) (detailing the ‘federalism costs exacted by §5’); Presley v. Etowah County Comm’n, 502 U. S. 491, 500–501 (1992) (describing §5 as ‘an extraordinary departure from the traditional course of relations between the States and the Federal Government’); City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 200 (1980) (Powell, J., dissenting) (‘The preclearance requirement both intrudes on the prerogatives of state and local governments and abridges the voting rights of all citizens in States covered under the Act’); Lopez, 525 U. S., at 293 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (‘Section 5 is a unique requirement that exacts significant federalism costs’); ante, at 7 (‘[Section] 5, which authorizes federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking, imposes substantial federalism costs’ (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Indeed, §5’s preclearance requirement is ‘one of the most extraordinary remedial provisions in an Act noted for its broad remedies. Even the Department of Justice has described it as a ‘substantial departure … from ordinary concepts of our federal system’; its encroachment on state sovereignty is significant and undeniable.’ United States v. Sheffield Bd. of Comm’rs, 1978) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted). This ‘encroachment is especially troubling because it destroys local control of the means of self-government, one of the central values of our polity.’ City of Rome, supra, at 201 (Powell, J., dissenting).  More than 40 years after its enactment, this intrusion has become increasingly difficult to justify.”