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Page Number: 49.0

18 

SHELBY COUNTY v. HOLDER 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

Congress  further  received  evidence  indicating  that
formal requests of the kind set out above represented only
the  tip  of  the  iceberg.  There  was  what  one  commentator 
described as an “avalanche of case studies of voting rights
violations  in  the  covered  jurisdictions,”  ranging  from
“outright  intimidation  and  violence  against  minority
voters”  to  “more  subtle  forms  of  voting  rights  depriva­
tions.”  Persily 202 (footnote omitted).  This evidence gave
Congress  ever  more  reason  to  conclude  that  the  time  had
not  yet  come  for  relaxed  vigilance  against  the  scourge  of
race discrimination in voting.

True,  conditions  in  the  South  have  impressively  im­
proved  since  passage  of  the  Voting  Rights  Act.    Congress 
noted  this  improvement  and  found  that  the  VRA  was  the
driving  force  behind  it.  2006  Reauthorization  §2(b)(1).
But  Congress  also  found  that  voting  discrimination  had 
evolved  into  subtler  second-generation  barriers,  and  that
eliminating preclearance would risk loss of the gains that 
had been made.  §§2(b)(2), (9).  Concerns of this order, the 
Court  previously  found,  gave  Congress  adequate  cause  to 
reauthorize the VRA.  City of Rome, 446 U. S., at 180–182 
(congressional  reauthorization  of  the  preclearance  re­
quirement was justified based on “the number and nature
of  objections  interposed  by  the  Attorney  General”  since 
the prior reauthorization; extension was “necessary to pre­
serve the limited and fragile achievements of the Act and 
to promote further amelioration of voting discrimination”)
(internal quotation marks omitted).  Facing such evidence
then,  the  Court  expressly  rejected  the  argument  that
disparities in voter turnout and number of elected officials 

—————— 

precleared  the  law  after  adopting  both  interpretations  as  an  express
“condition of preclearance.”  Id., at 37–38.  Two of the judges commented
that  the  case  demonstrated  “the  continuing  utility  of  Section  5  of  the 
Voting  Rights  Act  in  deterring  problematic,  and  hence  encouraging 
non-discriminatory, changes in state and local voting laws.”  Id., at 54 
(opinion of Bates, J.).