Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 54

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

23 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

ered  jurisdictions  have  not  been  able  to  bail  out  due  to
recent acts of noncompliance with the VRA, but that truth
reinforces  the  congressional  judgment  that  these  jurisdic­
tions were rightfully subject to preclearance, and ought to
remain under that regime. 

IV 
Congress  approached  the  2006  reauthorization  of  the
VRA with great care and seriousness.  The same cannot be 
said  of  the  Court’s  opinion  today.   The  Court  makes  no 
genuine  attempt  to  engage  with  the  massive  legislative
record  that  Congress  assembled.    Instead,  it  relies  on  
increases in voter registration and turnout as if that were 
the  whole  story.  See  supra,  at  18–19.  Without  even 
identifying  a  standard  of  review,  the  Court  dismissively
brushes off arguments based on “data from the record,” and 
declines  to  enter  the  “debat[e  about]  what  [the]  record 
shows.”  Ante, at 20–21.  One would expect more from an 
opinion striking at the heart of the Nation’s signal piece of
civil-rights legislation.

I note the most disturbing lapses.  First, by what right,
given  its  usual  restraint,  does  the  Court  even  address 
Shelby County’s facial challenge to the VRA?  Second, the 
Court veers away from controlling precedent regarding the
“equal  sovereignty”  doctrine  without  even  acknowledging 
that  it  is  doing  so.    Third,  hardly  showing  the  respect 
ordinarily paid when Congress acts to implement the Civil
War Amendments, and as just stressed, the Court does not
even deign to grapple with the legislative record. 

A 
Shelby County launched a purely facial challenge to the
VRA’s  2006  reauthorization.    “A  facial  challenge  to  a 
legislative  Act,”  the  Court  has  other  times  said,  “is,  of 
course, the most difficult challenge to mount successfully,
since the challenger must establish that no set of circum­