My contribution to the SCOTUSBlog symposium on the VRA begins:

The Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in NAMUDNO v. Holder was an invitation to Congress to go back and make changes to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to keep the Court from striking down the provision as an unconstitutional exercise of Congressional power. At oral argument, both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy – believed to be the key votes in this case – expressed considerable skepticism about requiring only some jurisdictions (mostly in the South) but not the rest of the country to get permission from the federal government for all changes in their voting rules, from redistricting to voter id to moving a polling place. NAMUDNO was in effect a remand, perhaps an act of statesmanship by Roberts, Kennedy, or both, to give Congress more time to rework the Act.  Yet Congress did not respond, and now the Court seems almost certain to take either the Shelby County v. Holder case or another case soon, and likely to strike down the Act. In this post I ask, why did Congress fail to act to fix the Act after NAMUDNO?