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4 

SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER 

Syllabus 

acteristics.  Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction.
Today the Nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Vot-
ing Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.  Pp. 17–18.

(2) The  Government  attempts  to  defend  the  formula  on  grounds 
that  it  is  “reverse-engineered”—Congress  identified  the  jurisdictions 
to be covered and then came up with criteria to describe them.  Kat-
zenbach  did  not  sanction  such  an  approach,  reasoning  instead  that 
the coverage formula was rational because the “formula . . . was rele-
vant to the problem.”  383 U. S., at 329, 330.  The Government has a 
fallback  argument—because  the  formula  was  relevant  in  1965,  its
continued use is permissible so long as any discrimination remains in 
the States identified in 1965.  But this does not look to “current polit-
ical conditions,” Northwest Austin, supra, at 203, instead relying on a 
comparison  between  the  States  in  1965.    But  history  did  not  end  in 
1965.    In  assessing  the  “current  need[ ]”  for  a  preclearance  system
treating States differently from one another today, history since 1965 
cannot be ignored.  The Fifteenth Amendment is not designed to pun-
ish  for  the  past;  its  purpose  is  to  ensure  a  better  future.    To  serve 
that  purpose,  Congress—if  it  is  to  divide  the  States—must  identify
those  jurisdictions  to  be  singled  out  on  a  basis  that  makes  sense  in
light of current conditions.  Pp. 18–21. 

(3) Respondents  also  rely  heavily  on  data  from  the  record  com-
piled  by  Congress  before  reauthorizing  the  Act.    Regardless  of  how
one looks at that record, no one can fairly say that it shows anything
approaching the “pervasive,” “flagrant,” “widespread,” and “rampant”
discrimination  that  clearly  distinguished  the  covered  jurisdictions 
from the rest of the Nation in 1965.  Katzenbach, supra, at 308, 315, 
331.  But a more fundamental problem remains: Congress did not use
that record to fashion a coverage formula grounded in current condi-
tions.  It instead re-enacted a formula based on 40-year-old facts hav-
ing no logical relation to the present day.  Pp. 21–22. 

679 F. 3d 848, reversed. 

ROBERTS, C. J.,  delivered  the  opinion  of  the  Court,  in  which  SCALIA, 
KENNEDY, THOMAS,  and  ALITO, JJ.,  joined.    THOMAS, J.,  filed  a  concur-
ring opinion.  GINSBURG, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BREYER, 
SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.