Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 25.0

Cite as:  570 U. S. ____ (2013) 

21 

Opinion of the Court 

reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act.  The court below and 
the  parties  have  debated  what  that  record  shows—they
have  gone  back  and  forth  about  whether  to  compare  cov-
ered  to  noncovered  jurisdictions  as  blocks,  how  to  dis-
aggregate  the  data  State  by  State,  how  to  weigh  §2  cases 
as  evidence  of  ongoing  discrimination,  and  whether  to 
consider  evidence  not  before  Congress,  among  other  is-
sues.  Compare,  e.g.,  679  F. 3d,  at  873–883  (case  below), 
with id., at 889–902 (Williams, J., dissenting).  Regardless
of how to look at the record, however, no one can fairly say
that  it  shows  anything  approaching  the  “pervasive,”  “fla-
grant,”  “widespread,”  and  “rampant”  discrimination  that
faced Congress in 1965, and that clearly distinguished the
covered  jurisdictions  from  the  rest  of  the  Nation  at  that
time.  Katzenbach,  supra,  at  308,  315,  331;  Northwest 
Austin, 557 U. S., at 201. 

But a more fundamental problem remains: Congress did
not use the record it compiled to shape a coverage formula
grounded  in  current  conditions.  It  instead  reenacted  a 
formula based on 40-year-old facts having no logical rela-
tion  to  the  present  day.    The  dissent  relies  on  “second-
generation  barriers,”  which  are  not  impediments  to  the 
casting  of  ballots,  but  rather  electoral  arrangements  that
affect the weight of minority votes.  That does not cure the 
problem.  Viewing  the  preclearance  requirements  as  tar-
geting  such  efforts  simply  highlights  the  irrationality  of 
continued  reliance  on  the  §4  coverage  formula,  which  is 
based  on  voting  tests  and  access  to  the  ballot,  not  vote
dilution.  We  cannot  pretend  that  we  are  reviewing  an
updated  statute,  or  try  our  hand  at  updating  the  statute
ourselves, based on the new record compiled by Congress.
Contrary to the dissent’s contention, see post, at 23, we are 
not ignoring the record; we are simply recognizing that  it
played no role in shaping the statutory formula before us 
today.

The  dissent  also  turns  to  the  record  to  argue  that,  in