{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=13&itemid=1514", "Grijalva Expresses Disappointment at Narrow Supreme Court Ruling Unraveling Decades-Old Voting Rights Act Preclearance Provision", "2013-06-25", "2013", "2013-06", "Democrat", "House", "AZ", "Ra\u00fal Grijalva", "G000551", "grijalva.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C.\u00a0\u2013 Rep. Ra\u00fal M. Grijalva today expressed his deep disappointment in the Supreme Court\u2019s 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder effectively gutting Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The decision overturned the current formula for deciding which states and localities must get preclearance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) before altering the borders of their elective districts and left it to Congress to create a new formula \u2013 a dim prospect in light of the House majority\u2019s intransigence on a host of other important national issues.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cThis ruling doesn\u2019t invite a better, more updated formula, it invites gridlock,\u201d Grijalva said. \u201cToday the majority on the Court washed its hands of evidence of discrimination, declared the current remedies invalid, and intentionally left it to a damaged institution to invent a new solution from scratch. That\u2019s not going to sit well with millions of Americans who face disenfranchisement.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tGrijalva noted that DOJ has blocked hundreds of proposed changes to electoral boundaries under Section 5 over the past several decades.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cWhat about this law is broken?\u201d he asked. \u201cWhat about this law isn\u2019t working? It\u2019s doing exactly what it was intended to do \u2013 prevent discrimination and disenfranchisement. This is a political decision that will undermine confidence in our electoral process. Now people who experience problems will only be able to go to court after they\u2019ve been denied their rights. This is a recipe for preventable legal trouble on a national scale. In that sense, this ruling is a disaster waiting to happen.\u201d\r\n\r\n\tCongress reauthorized the current Voting Rights Act preclearance formula just seven years ago. Today\u2019s decision renders that act of Congress invalid.\r\n\r\n\t\u201cWe proved in 2006, as we have several times previously, that preventing racial voting discrimination is a bipartisan goal,\u201d Grijalva said. \u201cI hope it remains a bipartisan goal and that Congress acts on this as soon as possible. Trust in government, as we\u2019ve seen, is not inexhaustible. We need to take this seriously before any more Americans lose faith.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=13&itemid=1514"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.646986696869135, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}