Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240099
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The appeal accuses the state GOP of, among other things, imposing an illegal poll tax by requiring all delegates to the party's nominating convention last June to pay a fee.
Three University of Virginia law students are urging the justices to rule that the fee amounted to a poll tax outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Their appeal said the three students - Fortis Morse, Kenneth Bartholomew and Kimberly Enderson - wanted to participate in the nominating convention but were deterred from attending by the fee.
The appeal also contended that, under a separate section of the voting rights law, imposition of the fee should have been submitted for Justice Department approval.
A three-judge federal court in Charlottesville ruled that such federal pre-clearance applies only to a political party's conduct of primary elections, not nominating conventions.
And the three-judge court said private citizens don't have the legal standing to sue over a tax on voters.
In the appeal acted on Monday, lawyers for the law students said the three-judge court's ruling ``represents a dramatic departure from well-settled law about the scope'' of the voting rights law ``and the right of private parties to enforce'' it.
Lawyers for the Republican Party of Virginia urged the justices to reject the appeal, deriding the poll-tax allegation.
``The payment at issue here is not a poll tax. Not being imposed by the state, it is not a tax at all,'' they said. ``Not being a burden on the right to vote in an election, it is not a poll tax. The fact that a delegate filing fee and a poll tax both involve the payment of money hardly permits the former to be redefined into the latter.''
The challenge to the party's $35 fee ``will be a case that determines exactly what rights political parties have,'' said David Johnson, executive director of the state GOP. ``We see this as a freedom-of-association question.''
Asked for its views, the Clinton administration said the three-judge court's ruling was wrong and should be reviewed.
``The fee at issue here ... is subject to the pre-clearance requirement,'' Justice Department lawyers said.
They added that the court also should decide whether private citizens, and not just the attorney general, may raise a poll-tax challenge.
The case is Morse vs. Oliver North for U.S. Senate Committee, 94-203.
by CNB