Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 26

22 

SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER 

Opinion of the Court 

light of voting discrimination in Shelby County, the county 
cannot  complain  about  the  provisions  that  subject  it  to
preclearance.  Post, at 23–30.  But that is like saying that
a  driver  pulled  over  pursuant  to  a  policy  of  stopping  all 
redheads cannot complain about that policy, if it turns out 
his license has expired.  Shelby County’s claim is that the 
coverage  formula  here  is  unconstitutional  in  all  its  appli-
cations,  because  of  how  it  selects  the  jurisdictions  sub-
jected to preclearance.  The county was selected based on
that formula, and may challenge it in court. 

D 
The  dissent  proceeds  from  a  flawed  premise.    It  quotes
the  famous  sentence  from  McCulloch  v.  Maryland, 4 
Wheat. 316, 421 (1819), with the following emphasis: “Let 
the  end  be  legitimate,  let  it  be  within  the  scope  of  the 
constitution,  and  all  means  which  are  appropriate,  which 
are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited,
but  consist  with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  constitution,
are constitutional.”  Post, at 9 (emphasis in dissent).  But 
this  case  is  about  a  part  of  the  sentence  that  the  dissent
does not emphasize—the part that asks whether a legisla-
tive means is “consist[ent] with the letter and spirit of the
constitution.”  The dissent states that “[i]t cannot tenably 
be  maintained”  that  this  is  an  issue  with  regard  to  the
Voting  Rights  Act,  post,  at  9,  but  four  years  ago,  in  an
opinion  joined  by  two  of  today’s  dissenters,  the  Court 
expressly  stated  that  “[t]he  Act’s  preclearance  require-
ment and its coverage formula raise serious constitutional
questions.”  Northwest Austin, supra, at 204.  The dissent 
does  not  explain  how  those  “serious  constitutional  ques-
tions” became untenable in four short years.     

The  dissent  treats  the  Act  as  if  it  were  just  like  any 
other  piece  of  legislation,  but  this  Court  has  made  clear
from the beginning that the Voting Rights Act is far from
ordinary.  At  the  risk  of  repetition,  Katzenbach  indicated