As expected by many, including me, today the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to declare the formula by which it is determined which jurisdictions are subject to “preclearance” under the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Chief Justice Roberts, fulfilling what appears to have been a career-long dream, wrote the opinion, joined by Justices Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Justice Ginsburg wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan.

The whole opinion is available here; SCOTUSblog’s case page (which includes links to articles, briefs, etc.) is here.

“Preclearance” means that the jurisdiction in question must get advance permission from the US Justice Department before making any changes to its voting procedures. The Court did not actually say that Congress lacks the power to subject certain jurisdictions to preclearance. What it did say is that the formula by which the Voting Rights Act determines which jurisdictions are subject to the preclearance requirement can no longer be used. So, in effect, the entire preclearance procedure under the Voting Rights Act has been gutted unless and until Congress comes up with a new formula and amends the Voting Rights Act accordingly. Figure the odds on that happening any time soon.

What’s really striking about Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion is how devoid of serious analysis it is. Basically, he says (a) preclearance imposes a burden on the affected states (that’s true – that is, after all, the point); (b) things have gotten better in the south than they were in 1965 (also true – in large part due to preclearance, as Roberts acknowledges); (c) Congress compiled thousands and thousands of pages of data before reauthorizing the Act’s preclearance formula in 2006, but based on what seems like a fairly perfunctory review, it doesn’t seem to him that they did it right; so (d) the preclearance formula is unconstitutional. Roberts barely even tells us what part of the Constitution he’s relying on in striking down one of the most successful and important pieces of civil rights legislation in the country’s history, to say nothing of demonstrating any level of serious engagement with the factual record before Congress or the principle that – especially in the area of voting, where the Constitution explicitly confers special authority on Congress – the courts are supposed to afford Congress some deference in its choice of how to address identified problems.

Justice Ginsburg’s dissent does a nice job of calling Roberts on the carpet for his crappy opinion. Here are a couple of good quotes:

In the Court’s view, the very success of §5 of the Voting Rights Act demands its dormancy…. 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. 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.” One would expect more from an opinion striking at the heart of the Nation’s signal piece of civil-rights legislation…. [T]he Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decisionmaking. Quite the opposite. Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA…. 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, of course, Ginsburg wrote for only four Justices, so her opinion is full of sound and fury….

One is left with the depressing sense that, for John Roberts, it’s been so obvious for so many years that the Voting Rights Act is a bad idea that it hardly requires serious discussion to declare it unconstitutional. After all, he’s been on record since the early 1980s as thinking that the Voting Rights Act was a big ol’ hassle for states and localities, and really, why can’t the feds just leave well enough alone. So, as I’ve said before, all the lefties and centrists who were super in love with Roberts after he cast the 5th vote to uphold Obamacare last year got snookered. It is pretty hilarious to read some of those quotes now in light of what happened today.