Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 64.0

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

33 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

ence of a comparable need elsewhere.  See Tr. of Oral Arg.
61–62 (suggesting that proof of egregious episodes of racial
discrimination in covered jurisdictions would not suffice to
carry the day for the VRA, unless such episodes are shown 
to  be  absent  elsewhere).    I  am  aware  of  no  precedent  for 
imposing such a double burden on defenders of legislation. 

C 
The Court has time and again declined to upset legisla­
tion  of  this  genre  unless  there  was  no  or  almost  no  evi­
dence of unconstitutional action by States.  See, e.g., City 
of  Boerne  v.  Flores,  521  U. S.  507,  530  (1997)  (legislative 
record “mention[ed] no episodes [of the kind the legislation
aimed to check] occurring in the past 40 years”).  No such 
claim  can  be  made  about  the  congressional  record  for  the
2006  VRA  reauthorization.  Given  a  record  replete  with
examples  of  denial  or  abridgment  of  a  paramount  federal 
right,  the  Court  should  have  left  the  matter  where  it
belongs: in Congress’ bailiwick. 

Instead,  the  Court  strikes  §4(b)’s  coverage  provision
because, in its view, the provision is not based on “current
conditions.”  Ante,  at  17.  It  discounts,  however,  that  one 
such  condition  was  the  preclearance  remedy  in  place  in
the  covered  jurisdictions,  a  remedy  Congress  designed 
both to catch discrimination before it causes harm, and to 
guard  against  return  to  old  ways.    2006  Reauthorization 
§2(b)(3), (9).  Volumes of evidence supported Congress’ de­
termination  that  the  prospect  of  retrogression  was  real.
Throwing  out  preclearance  when  it  has  worked  and  is
continuing  to  work  to  stop  discriminatory  changes  is  like 
throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you
are not getting wet.

But, the Court insists, the coverage formula is no good; 
it is based on “decades-old data and eradicated practices.” 
Ante, at 18.  Even if the legislative record shows, as engag­
ing  with  it  would  reveal,  that  the  formula  accurately