In 2013, there should not be the Uncovered States of America and the Covered States of America. There should be the United States of America. Other States have persuasively explained why their experiences support this proposition. This brief provides Alabama’s own, unique perspective. George Wallace and Bull Connor used to be in Alabama, and Selma and the Edmund Pettus Bridge still are. These people and places were particularly responsible for making the preclearance mechanism necessary and appropriate in 1965. Things that have happened in Alabama in the meantime should thus be particularly instructive in determining whether Congress can employ the same extraordinary measure now.

Alabama’s experience on these fronts is consistent with the Court’s assessment four Terms ago. Things in the South have, indeed, changed. See Nw. Austin Mun. Utility Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193, 202 (2009). Alabama has a new generation of leaders with no connection to the tragic events of 1965. The effects of those events on voting and political representation have now, thankfully, faded away. These on-the-ground realities show that the 2006 Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibilities when it simply reimposed, on Alabama and other States ready to be equal partners in the Union, burdens that previously were necessary and appropriate only because of a defiance and recalcitrance whose vestiges no longer exist.