Linda Greenhouse on Shelby County Argument

Her Opinionator column concludes:

The Roberts court stands on the brink of making an error of historic proportions. A needless and reckless aggrandizement of power in one case to satisfy the current majority’s agenda will erode the court’s authority over time.

But there was no sign from the majority last week of an appetite for stepping back this time, as the court did in its last confrontation with Section 5 four years ago. Justice Scalia – he who flaunts his refusal to join any portion of any opinion that cites legislative history – returned repeatedly to his view that manifest Congressional support for the Voting Rights Act was somehow illegitimate, not to be taken at face value. The problem was, he said, that members of Congress “are going to lose votes if they do not re-enact the Voting Rights Act.”

Justice Scalia, that’s called democracy.

Or it was.

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