Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 46

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

15 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

that  preclearance  lessened  the  litigation  burden  on  cov­
ered  jurisdictions  themselves,  because  the  preclearance 
process is far less costly than defending against a §2 claim, 
and clearance by DOJ substantially reduces the likelihood 
that a §2 claim will be mounted.  Reauthorizing the Voting 
Rights  Act’s  Temporary  Provisions:  Policy  Perspectives 
and Views From the Field: Hearing before the Subcommit­
tee  on  the  Constitution,  Civil  Rights  and  Property  Rights
of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 109th Cong., 2d 
Sess., pp. 13, 120–121 (2006).  See also Brief for States of 
New York,  California, Mississippi, and North Carolina as 
Amici Curiae 8–9 (Section 5 “reduc[es] the likelihood that
a  jurisdiction  will  face  costly  and  protracted  Section  2 
litigation”).

The  number  of  discriminatory  changes  blocked  or  de­
terred  by  the  preclearance  requirement  suggests  that  the 
state  of  voting  rights  in  the  covered  jurisdictions  would 
have been significantly different absent this remedy.  Sur­
veying  the  type  of  changes  stopped  by  the  preclearance
procedure  conveys  a  sense  of  the  extent  to  which  §5  con­
tinues to protect minority voting rights.  Set out below are 
characteristic  examples  of  changes  blocked  in  the  years 
leading up to the 2006 reauthorization: 

	  In  1995,  Mississippi  sought  to  reenact  a  dual  voter 
registration system, “which was initially enacted in
1892  to  disenfranchise  Black  voters,”  and  for  that 
reason, was struck down by a federal court in 1987. 
H. R. Rep. No. 109–478, at 39. 

	  Following  the  2000  census,  the  City  of  Albany,
Georgia,  proposed  a  redistricting  plan  that  DOJ 
found to be “designed with the purpose to limit and
retrogress  the  increased  black  voting  strength  . . . 
in  the  city  as  a  whole.”    Id.,  at  37  (internal  quota­
tion marks omitted).