Voting Rights Act renewal report [NCVRA] News
Voting Rights Act renewal report [NCVRA]

Protecting Minority Voters: The Voting Rights Act at Work 1982-2005, National Commission on the Voting Rights Act, February 21, 2006 [reporting that minority voters in the United States still face unfair poll tactics and barriers that disenfranchise them]. Excerpt:

In short, both the evidence from the hearings and the additional data relied on in this Report indicate that while the Voting Rights Act has accomplished much during its first forty years, more remains to be done in order to protect the rights of racial and ethnic minorities to fully and equally participate in the electoral process.

Read the full text of the report. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

THIS DAY @ LAW

First US life insurance company incorporated

On January 11, 1759, America's first life insurance company was incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers was established by Presbyterians to support the families of their ministers. In 1988, the company's name was changed to the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund. The company later became Covenant Life Insurance Company before being acquired by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company in 2002. Read a history of the Presbyterian Ministers' Fund from the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

Treaty ended Anglo-American claims, courts in China

On January 11, 1943, the United States and Great Britain relinquished by treaty their extraterritorial claims in China. This abandonment effectively ended the jurisdiction of the extraterritorial United States Court for China (established 1906) and the British Supreme Court in China. Read more about the United States Court for China, which one scholar has called "probably the strangest federal tribunal ever constituted by Congress," in a short online history of the US Ninth Circuit.