• Supreme Court to hear key voting rights case

    The Supreme Court will decide whether or not to scale back the landmark Voting Rights Act, which requires states with a history of discrimination at the polls to get federal permission before making any changes in how they conduct elections. NBC's Pete Williams reports.

    By NBC's Pete Williams

    Agreeing to hear another important case on race in America, the Supreme Court said Friday it will take up a battle over a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Civil rights groups fear the court will use this case to gut the law.

    Passed by Congress in 1965 and renewed four times since then, most recently in 2006, a key provision requires states with a history of discrimination at the polls to get federal permission before making any changes to election procedures -- from redrawing congressional district boundaries to changing the locations of polling places.

    The law was at the core of the legal cases this year blocking strict new voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina.

    Shelby County, Ala., claims the pre-clearance requirement -- which currently covers nine entire states, 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere -- is unconstitutional. Under the law, those states and areas are presumed to be acting improperly whenever they seek election changes and "must either go hat in hand to Justice Department officialdom to seek approval, or embark on expensive litigation in a remote judicial venue," says the lawyer for the county.

    The areas covered by the law, Shelby County says, include some localities that have made substantial reforms while missing other parts of the country that have failed to root out discrimination at the polls.  "Florida has been forced into pre-clearance litigation to prove that reducing early voting from 14 days to 8 is not discriminatory, when states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania have no early voting at all," the county says.

    But the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund says the current map is a close enough fit to cover the areas of greatest concern.  "Congress is not a surgeon with a scalpel when it acts to legislate across the 50 states. But it can reasonably attack discrimination where it finds it," the group says.

    Three years ago, the Supreme Court narrowly rejected a challenge to the pre-clearance  requirement but strongly suggested that several justices had doubts about its constitutionality, given recent electoral reforms. "Things have changed in the South," the court said in 2009.  "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare."

    Last month, the Supreme Court heard another racially charged case, re-examining whether the nation's colleges can use affirmative action in admissions.

     

  • Santorum wins Mississippi and Alabama primaries, Romney takes Hawaii

    Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum won Tuesday's primaries in Mississippi and Alabama, and called for conservatives to unite behind his campaign. Meanwhile, frontrunner Mitt Romney won Hawaii's caucuses. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By Michael O'Brien, msnbc.com

     

    Updated at 8:02 a.m. ET -- Rick Santorum scored victories in the Mississippi and Alabama primaries on Tuesday, depriving Mitt Romney of a signature win in a conservative stronghold and raising fresh doubts about the viability of Newt Gingrich's campaign.

    The former Pennsylvania senator made his case for being the lone, serious Republican challenger to Romney for the remainder of the primary by besting Gingrich in states the former speaker's campaign had previously said were essential to its long-term viability.

    However, there were no signs that this race would lose another candidate anytime soon.

    “We did it again,” Santorum said to wild applause from supporters in Louisiana in response to projections by NBC News that he would win both Mississippi and Alabama. Romney had hoped to score a victory in Mississippi, proving his ability to win a state that composes part of the heart of the modern GOP. But he appeared to be heading to a third-place finish in both contests, failing to even surpass Gingrich.

    A former governor of Massachusetts, Romney acknowledged these contests were an “away game” for a figure like him, marking an effort to set low expectations for how he might finish in the contests.

    John David Mercer / AP

    Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets supporters during a campaign stop at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Mobile, Ala.

    The Romney campaign was able to pick up delegates in both states, contributing to its march to collect the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

    "I am pleased that we will be increasing our delegate count in a very substantial way after tonight," Romney said in a written statement. "With the delegates won tonight, we are even closer to the nomination."

    His campaign accrued additional delegates in Hawaii. NBC News declared Romney as projected winner of Hawaii's caucuses early Wednesday. He took about 45 percent of the votes in the state. Santorum earned about 25 percent. 

    NBC's David Gregory and Chuck Todd tell TODAY's Matt Lauer how Rick Santorum's victories in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries will change the GOP race for the White House.

    The Associated Press also reported that Romney picked up all six delegates from American Samoa, plus the endorsement of three members of the Republican National Committee.

    A total of 107 delegates were up for grabs between Mississippi, Alabama and Hawaii on Tuesday.

    View NBC's delegate count

    An outright victory for Romney would have helped close the door on the primary campaign and begin to pivot to the general election, even if it would have come because of a split in the conservative vote.

    'Misrepresenting the truth'
    Romney has sought to project an air of inevitability surrounding his campaign nonetheless.

    "Sen. Santorum is at the desperate end of his campaign and is trying in some way to boost his prospects and, frankly, misrepresenting the truth is not a good way of doing that," Romney said Tuesday night on CNN.

    But Santorum has shown little interest in backing down.

    “For someone who thinks this race is inevitable, he spent a while lot of money against me for being inevitable,” Santorum said, making reference to the money spent by a pro-Romney super PAC in the two states. (A super PAC also spent on Santorum’s behalf, but not nearly to the extent of Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney group.)

    The ex-senator has begun openly expressing his desire for the Republican campaign to narrow into a one-on-one showdown between him and Romney. Santorum also sharpened his attacks against Romney, going after Romney's record in the private sector -- questions about which, just two months ago, Santorum had effectively declared off-limits.

    But Santorum still faces a challenge in finding a way to ease Gingrich from the race. Exit poll data in Mississippi found that Santorum won the most conservative voters on Tuesday, while "somewhat conservative" voters split three ways. Similar patterns held true in Alabama. Santorum has argued that, with Gingrich out of the race, he would stand to collect many of the former speaker's voters, and be able to beat Romney.

    Santorum sharpens attacks against Romney

    Gingrich has been defiant, vowing to fight all the way to the Republican National Convention this summer in Tampa, where his campaign argues he could emerge as the nominee if Romney fails to secure a majority of delegates.

    "I emphasize going to Tampa because one of the things tonight proves is that the elite media's effort to prove that Mitt Romney is inevitable just collapsed," Gingrich said in Birmingham. "If you're the front-runner and you keep coming in third, then you're not much of a front-runner."

    Newt Gingrich speaks to supporters in Birmingham, Ala. following a loss to Rick Santorum in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries

    Early exit poll data had raised the Romney campaign's optimism in Mississippi as the possible beneficiary of a split vote between Santorum and Gingrich, and a slightly better-than-expected performance among key blocs such as evangelical or born-again Christians, as well as less educated or less moneyed voters.

    Romney viewed as most electable but not enough to help him break through big in Dixie

    His campaign stressed the fact that few political observers had expected Romney to win either contest, but aside from some early strongholds this primary cycle Romney has yet to score the kind of signature win needed to demonstrate that core GOP conservatives have acceded to his nomination.

    His campaign still has the inside track to win the delegate battle, though that would threaten a prolonged and costly fight for the nomination at a time when many Republicans have worried about the toll this nominating cycle has taken on the party’s brand.

    The race now turns to a primary this weekend in Puerto Rico – to which both Romney and Santorum will travel – and a caucus in Missouri that will determine the state’s allocation of delegates (unlike an earlier, nonbinding primary, which Santorum won).

    After Puerto Rico, the next primary is slated for Tuesday in Illinois, where Romney has already blanketed the airwaves. Gingrich’s public schedule also calls for stops in Illinois later this week, though Santorum said Tuesday he considers it an uphill battle to win the popular vote in that state.

  • Suspicious powder found in letter at Al Gore's office

    By msnbc.com staff

    NASHVILLE – Authorities are investigating the contents of a threatening letter containing powder sent to the office of former Vice President Al Gore on the city’s south side Friday afternoon.

    Police said two interns were opening mail at the office when they discovered a threatening letter filled with a white powdery substance, according to Newschannel5.com in Nashville.

    The building at Bedford Avenue, near the Mall at Green Hills, was immediately evacuated and authorities were called in to investigate.

    "These type of letters, even if a hoax, are a serious crime that will be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and referred to the U.S. Attorneys Offices for prosecution," the FBI said in a statement Friday. 

    According to WSMV-TV in Nashville, FBI spokesman Keith Moses said investigators ruled out a link to the series of letters distributed to offices of senators nationwide this week. Letters also containing a powdery substance proved to be harmless.

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