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Page Number: 55.0

24 

SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

stances exists under which the Act would be valid.”  United 
States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987).

“[U]nder  our  constitutional  system[,]  courts  are  not 
roving  commissions  assigned  to  pass  judgment  on  the
validity of the Nation’s laws.”  Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 
U. S. 601, 610–611 (1973).  Instead, the “judicial Power” is 
limited to deciding particular “Cases” and “Controversies.”
U. S.  Const.,  Art. III,  §2.    “Embedded  in  the  traditional 
rules governing constitutional adjudication is the principle 
that  a  person  to  whom  a  statute  may  constitutionally  be
applied will not be heard to challenge that statute on the 
ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitution­
ally  to  others,  in  other  situations  not  before  the  Court.” 
Broadrick,  413  U. S.,  at  610.    Yet  the  Court’s  opinion  in
this  case  contains  not  a  word  explaining  why  Congress
lacks  the  power  to  subject  to  preclearance  the  particular
plaintiff  that  initiated  this  lawsuit—Shelby  County,  Ala­
bama.  The reason for the Court’s silence is apparent, for 
as  applied  to  Shelby  County,  the  VRA’s  preclearance 
requirement is hardly contestable.

Alabama is home to Selma, site of the “Bloody Sunday” 
beatings  of  civil-rights  demonstrators  that  served  as  the 
catalyst for the VRA’s enactment.  Following those events,
Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march from Selma to Mont­
gomery, Alabama’s capital, where he called for passage of 
the VRA.  If the Act passed, he foresaw, progress could be
made  even  in  Alabama,  but  there  had  to  be  a  steadfast 
national  commitment  to  see  the  task  through  to  comple­
tion.  In  King’s  words,  “the  arc  of  the  moral  universe  is 
long,  but  it  bends  toward  justice.”    G.  May,  Bending  To­
ward  Justice:  The  Voting  Rights  Act  and  the  Transfor­
mation of American Democracy 144 (2013). 

History has proved King right.  Although circumstances
in  Alabama  have  changed,  serious  concerns  remain. 
Between  1982  and  2005,  Alabama  had  one  of  the  highest 
rates of successful §2 suits, second only to its VRA-covered