Roll Call: 5 things to know about the voting rights bill named for John Lewis

A Democratic measure to restore key provisions of the Voting Rights Act is fueling an intense advocacy push, including high-profile marches over the weekend in Washington and other cities. Some of the bill’s provisions still remain little understood, however.  …

The House-passed bill says states and localities that had 15 or more violations in the past 25 years would need preclearance from Washington before any changes to voting laws they enact would take effect.

“When you go back and read the Shelby County decision, it didn’t actually strike down the concept of preclearance itself,” said Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy and government affairs at Common Cause, which supports the legislation. Instead, it struck down the formula to determine which states had to get preclearance, he added. The court said the previous system was outdated. …

The bill would also subject certain proposed laws to preclearance, even potentially in jurisdictions that would not otherwise fall under the 25-year lookback criteria.

The bill’s Section 6 would set out several practices, including changes to voter identification needed to vote and maintenance of voter rolls, that could be subject to preclearance. “All those that have been shown to be discriminatory would need to be precleared,” Spaulding said. …

Spaulding, however, did not think that’s a worry. But the measure could make it easier for plaintiffs to bring, and possibly win, suits. That’s because the bill responded to another Supreme Court case this year, Brnovich v. DNC, that made it more difficult to challenge voting laws on the grounds of discrimination. That decision, which was aimed at Section 2 of the original Voting Rights Act, made it harder for an election change that causes a disproportionate impact to minority communities to be considered a violation of the law.