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Page Number: 63.0

32 

SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

26 U. S. C.  §142(l) (EPA required to locate green building
project in a State meeting specified population criteria); 42 
U. S. C.  §3796bb  (at  least  50  percent  of  rural  drug  en­
forcement  assistance  funding  must  be  allocated  to  States
with “a population density of fifty-two or fewer persons per 
square  mile  or  a  State  in  which  the  largest  county  has
fewer  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people,  based 
on the decennial census of 1990 through fiscal year 1997”); 
§§13925, 13971 (similar population criteria for funding  to
combat  rural  domestic  violence);  §10136  (specifying  rules 
applicable to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site,
and  providing  that  “[n]o  State,  other  than  the  State  of 
Nevada,  may  receive  financial  assistance  under  this  sub­
section  after  December  22,  1987”).    Do  such  provisions
remain  safe  given  the  Court’s  expansion  of  equal  sover­
eignty’s sway?

Of gravest concern, Congress relied on our pathmarking 
Katzenbach  decision  in  each  reauthorization  of  the  VRA. 
It  had  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  Act’s  limited  geo­
graphical  scope  would  weigh  in  favor  of,  not  against,  the
Act’s  constitutionality.    See,  e.g.,  United  States  v.  Morri-
son, 529 U. S. 598, 626–627 (2000) (confining preclearance
regime to States with a record of discrimination bolstered
the  VRA’s  constitutionality).    Congress  could  hardly  have
foreseen  that  the  VRA’s  limited  geographic  reach  would 
render  the  Act  constitutionally  suspect.    See  Persily  195
(“[S]upporters of the Act sought to develop an evidentiary
record  for  the  principal  purpose  of  explaining  why  the
covered  jurisdictions  should  remain  covered,  rather  than
justifying  the  coverage  of  certain  jurisdictions  but  not
others.”).

In  the  Court’s  conception,  it  appears,  defenders  of  the
VRA  could  not  prevail  upon  showing  what  the  record
overwhelmingly  bears  out,  i.e.,  that  there  is  a  need  for 
continuing  the  preclearance  regime  in  covered  States.    In 
addition,  the  defenders  would  have  to  disprove  the  exist­