Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

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

3 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

people  of  a  State  and  the  State  itself,  must  be  given  by 
them  or  by  the  legislative  and  political  department  of 
the government of the United States.”  Giles v. Harris, 189 
U. S. 475, 488 (1903).

Congress  learned  from  experience  that  laws  targeting
particular  electoral  practices  or  enabling  case-by-case
litigation were inadequate to the task.  In the Civil Rights
Acts  of  1957,  1960,  and  1964,  Congress  authorized  and 
then expanded the power of “the Attorney General to seek 
injunctions  against  public  and  private  interference  with
the  right  to  vote  on  racial  grounds.”    Katzenbach,  383 
U. S., at 313.  But circumstances reduced the ameliorative 
potential of these legislative Acts: 

“Voting suits are unusually onerous to prepare, some­
times  requiring  as  many  as  6,000  man-hours  spent 
combing  through  registration  records  in  preparation
for trial.  Litigation has been exceedingly slow, in part
because  of the  ample  opportunities  for  delay  afforded 
voting  officials  and  others  involved  in  the  proceed­
ings.  Even when favorable decisions have finally been
obtained,  some  of  the  States  affected  have  merely 
switched to discriminatory devices not covered by the
federal decrees or have enacted difficult new tests de­
signed to prolong the existing disparity between white 
and Negro registration.  Alternatively, certain local of­
ficials  have  defied  and  evaded  court  orders  or  have 
simply  closed  their  registration  offices  to  freeze  the 
voting rolls.”  Id., at 314 (footnote omitted). 

Patently, a new approach was needed. 

Answering that need, the Voting Rights Act became one 
of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified 
exercises  of  federal  legislative  power  in  our  Nation’s  his­
tory.  Requiring federal preclearance of changes in voting
laws in the covered jurisdictions—those States and locali­
ties where opposition to the Constitution’s commands were