Schulte Lawyers Author Report in Support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act

On Aug. 16, 2021, the House Judiciary Committee convened hearings on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (“H.R. 4”). In support of the Act, a team of Schulte lawyers and business staff drafted a thorough Report on the current conditions of voting rights discrimination in Alabama, which was officially entered into the Congressional Record. Schulte drafted this Report with our pro bono client The Southern Poverty Law Center and worked closely with Fair Fight Action. Schulte’s Report is now used as a model for other law firms and organizations preparing similar reports in support of H.R. 4.

The more than 100-page Report, entitled “Selma, Shelby County, & Beyond: Alabama’s Unyielding Record of Racial Discrimination in Voting, the Unwavering Alabamians Who Fight Back, & the Critical Need to Restore the Voting Rights Act,” reveals current, consistent and well-documented racial discrimination in voting in Alabama and shares the first-hand experiences of 56 Alabama voters. The report finds that racial discrimination in voting has reached crisis levels following the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision by the Supreme Court that ended federal preclearance of voting changes in jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination in voting, such as Alabama.

The Schulte team was led by individual client services partner Catherine Grevers Schmidt. The team also included litigation partner Gary Stein and associates Noah Gillespie and Erika Simonson; and investment management associates Gwendolen Akard and Savannah Price and former Schulte lawyer Brandon Faske.