Bob assesses the Roberts Court’s take on federalism in the elections arena. It begins:
Barely had the Court issued its opinion in the Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, invalidating Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act and for all practical purposes Section 5, when the State of Texas promptly announced a new photo ID requirement. And the Court’s reasoning in this and other cases in recent years, including the freshly minted Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, 570 U.S. ____(2013), leaves little doubt that it is emboldening states to proceed on the path of the last few years, imposing ID and other limitations on access to the polls.
The Roberts opinion in Shelby County is short: 24 pages in all, which seems a fairly crisp, summarily delivered blow to a landmark voting law. Striking is the emphasis on the rights of states to legislate electoral restrictions with a freer hand. Right from the beginning, the Chief emphasizes that the remedy provided by Section 5 was “extraordinary” or “drastic” or “dramatic”: he applies those adjectives to the intrusion on the authority of states rather than to the long and sordid history of voting discrimination. Shelby County, No. 12-96, Slip Op. at 1.
On this point, the Chief bends Katzenbach v. South Carolina, 383 U.S. 301, out of recognizable shape. He would have the reader believe that the case represented on the federal government’s part a stretch—an “extraordinary,” “drastic,” “dramatic” action—warranted by exceptional circumstances. Lost in this gloss on the case is the actual tone and substance of the Katzenbach Court’s position. . . .
More here.