As I noted back in June, those in the civil rights community pushed for a certain package of Voting Rights Act renewal amendments quickly because they feared that whichever Republican Member of Congress would take over for the current House Judiciary Committee chair, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, might be less willing to push for a strong VRA renewal. I don’t think it appeared likely to anyone at the time that the Democrats would soon control both branches of Congress and that John Conyers would chair the House Judiciary Committee (with Patrick Leahy, another strong supporter of the VRA, chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee).
How might that have changed what appeared in the renewed VRA? We’ll never know. Of course, to the extent that the civil rights community got a more moderate bill than they would have with Democrats in charge, it might be that the moderation is what saves the amendments from being struck down as unconstitutional. We’ll know the answer to this latter question as NAMUDNO works its way to the Supreme Court.