I have posted at this link Hans von Spakovsky’s response to Gerry Hebert’s suggestion that NAMUDNO’s challenge to section 5 may fail on standing grounds. The response begins:

Several recent blog posts and chatter in the election law world shows that supporters of s5 are despairing after the April 29 oral argument. This fear has led to some real reaching and produced some very flawed, if creative, post hoc arguments for how the Court could avoid reaching the merits of the case. In an unfortunate example of ex parte blogging, one of the counsels to a party in NAMUDNO in the district court who wrote an amicus in the Supreme Court has argued for dismissal of the case on a technicality that was never raised by any party or amicus in the case. This follows others’ discussions of avoiding an adverse decision through quick congressional action to fix the coverage formula. But Rick Hasen was right to describe the latter as an “admittedly crazy thought,” and the particular argument that the Court can avoid determining whether Section 5 remains constitutional on standing and ripeness grounds doesn’t stand up to scrutiny (strict or intermediate).

For the record, my “admittedly crazy thought” involved fixing bailout, not the coverage formula.