Today’s excellent WaPo story on Judge David Tatel has this background on his opinion for the D.C. Circuit in Shelby County v. Holder:

In 2012, a significant case landed with Tatel and his colleagues over a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required states with a history of discrimination to seek federal approval before changing voting laws…

“I’ve read the briefs, and I realize the Supreme Court has hinted where it’s headed,” Judge Stephen F. Williams, a Reagan nominee, wrote in an email to Tatel. “But I remain uncertain. What’s your view, David?”

What followed were memos, phone calls and meetings in Tatel’s chambers overlooking the National Gallery of Art in which the judges grappled over the law and the issues in a collaborative back-and-forth…

Tatel could not persuade Williams, his close friend who died last summer. But Griffith, a nominee of George W. Bush, joined Tatel’s majority opinion upholding the law…

But, as Williams predicted, the Supreme Court reversed Tatel the next year in a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.