Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 42

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

11 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

“As  against  the  reserved  powers  of  the  States,  Congress
may  use  any  rational  means  to  effectuate  the  constitu­
tional  prohibition  of  racial  discrimination  in  voting.”  383 
U. S.,  at  324.  Faced  with  subsequent  reauthorizations  of
the  VRA,  the  Court  has  reaffirmed  this  standard.    E.g., 
City  of  Rome,  446  U. S.,  at  178.    Today’s  Court  does  not 
purport  to  alter  settled  precedent  establishing  that  the
dispositive  question  is  whether  Congress  has  employed 
“rational means.” 

For  three  reasons,  legislation  reauthorizing  an  existing
statute is especially likely to satisfy the minimal require­
ments of the rational-basis test.  First, when reauthorization 
is  at  issue,  Congress  has  already  assembled  a  legislative
record  justifying  the  initial  legislation.    Congress  is  en­
titled  to  consider  that  preexisting  record  as  well  as  the
record before it at the time of the vote on reauthorization. 
This  is  especially  true  where,  as  here,  the  Court  has  re­
peatedly  affirmed  the  statute’s  constitutionality  and  Con­
gress has adhered to the very model the Court has upheld. 
See id., at 174 (“The appellants are asking us to do noth­
ing  less  than  overrule  our  decision  in  South  Carolina  v. 
Katzenbach . . . , in which we upheld the constitutionality
of the Act.”); Lopez v. Monterey County, 525 U. S. 266, 283 
(1999) (similar).

Second,  the  very  fact  that  reauthorization  is  necessary
arises  because  Congress  has  built  a  temporal  limitation
into  the  Act.  It  has  pledged  to  review,  after  a  span  of
years  (first  15,  then  25)  and  in  light  of  contemporary
evidence,  the  continued  need  for  the  VRA.  Cf.  Grutter  v. 
Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 343 (2003) (anticipating, but not 
guaranteeing,  that,  in  25  years,  “the  use  of  racial  prefer­
ences [in higher education] will no longer be necessary”). 
Third,  a  reviewing  court  should  expect  the  record  sup­
porting  reauthorization  to  be  less  stark  than  the  record
originally made.  Demand for a record of violations equiva­
lent  to  the  one  earlier  made  would  expose  Congress  to  a