Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections was a significant Supreme Court case decided on March 24, 1966, which addressed the constitutionality of poll taxes in state and local elections. Poll taxes were fees required to vote and had been used primarily in Southern states as a means to disenfranchise voters, especially African Americans. The case arose when Virginia residents challenged the state's $1.50 annual poll tax, arguing it constituted economic discrimination and violated their constitutional rights. The Supreme Court, in a 6–3 decision, overruled a previous ruling and declared that imposing a fee to vote was unconstitutional, emphasizing that voter qualifications should not be tied to wealth. While the ruling was a step toward greater voting access, it had limited immediate impact, as only a few states still employed poll taxes at that time. The decision highlighted ongoing debates about voting rights and the mechanisms used to restrict electoral participation.
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
The Supreme Court’s March 24, 1966, decision in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections eliminated the use of poll taxes in state and local elections.
Poll taxes, or the payment of a fee in order to vote, were widely used in Southern states as a means to restrict the electorate, and in particular black voters. Because poll taxes led to corruption—as candidates and political organizations would pay the taxes of their supporters—and because there were more effective ways of eliminating black voters, many Southern states started to repeal their poll taxes. Opposition to the poll tax was led by the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). On five occasions the House of Representatives passed legislation to ban the tax, but Southern senators filibustered, blocking passage in the Senate. In 1964, the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, eliminating the use of poll taxes in federal elections. Five states—Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia—continued to use poll taxes in state and local elections. Arkansas dropped its poll tax in 1964 after the passage of the Twenty-fourth Amendment.
In 1965 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a poll tax ban in state elections as part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Senate failed to support the ban, however, and the final version of the Voting Rights Act merely stated that the poll tax “denied or abridged” the constitutional right to vote.
Blacks in Virginia brought suit against that state’s $1.50 annual poll tax as a requirement for voting in state and local elections. The U.S. district court, citing the 1937 case Breedlove v. Suttles, dismissed the claim. In Breedlove, the U.S. Supreme Court had held that, except where constrained by the Constitution, the states may impose whatever conditions on suffrage that they deem appropriate. On appeal, a 6–3 majority in the Supreme Court overruled Breedlove and held that the payment of a fee in order to vote violated the Constitution.
Interestingly, although the plaintiffs were African American, the ruling was based on economic discrimination rather than racial discrimination. “To introduce wealth or payment of a fee as a measure of a voter’s qualifications,” wrote Justice William O. Douglas in the majority opinion, “is to introduce a capricious or irrelevant factor.” In the view of the Court’s majority, voter qualifications had no relationship to wealth. The three dissenters believed that a “fairly applied” poll tax could be a reasonable basis for the right to vote. The Harper decision actually had little direct impact. Since only four states used poll taxes as a condition for voting at the time of the Harper decision, the ban on poll taxes barely generated a ripple on the surface of American politics.
Bibliography
Ackerman, Bruce, and Jennifer Nou. “Canonizing the Civil Rights Revolution: The People and the Poll Tax.” Northwestern U Law Rev. 103.1 (2009): 63–148. Print.
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Paulson, Darryl. “Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections.” African American History. Vol 1. Ed. Carl L. Bankston. Pasadena: Salem, 2006. 435–436. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Rose, Henry. “The Constitutionality of Government Fees as Applied to the Poor.” Northern Illinois U Law Rev. 33 (2013): 293. Supplemental Index. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.
Schacter, Jane S. “Unequal Inequalities? Poverty, Sexual Orientation, and the Dynamics of Constitutional Law.” Utah Law Rev. 2014.4 (2014): 867–896. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2015.