I am not able to attend oral arguments today in Shelby County, and thanks to the Supreme Court’s indefensible rules, there is no live streaming audio or video of the argument.  A transcript will be released later today, which I will read, link to, and comment upon.  Audio will be released on Friday afternoon. I will also link to news reports from oral argument, as they become available, likely beginning an hour or so from now.

In the meantime, Howard had two final roundups of VRA stories and commentaries.  I’ve written three opeds in advance of the argument:

What’s Lost if the Voting Rights Falls? (Slate)

If the Court Strikes Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (Reuters)

Who Controls Voting Rights? (Reuters)

I organized this symposium at Reuters. SCOTUSBlog also ran an excellent symposium. ACS has this Shelby County resource page.

And for those who wish to go back in time: My first writing on the issues being argued today was in 2005, in writing edited by Chris Geidner: Congressional Power to Renew the Preclearance Provisions of the Voting Rights Act after Tennessee v. Lane. My 2006 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the serious constitutional questions with renewing the act without making any changes is here. My article analyzing what was likely to happen after the Supreme Court raised constitutional questions in the NAMDNO case appeared in the 2010 Supreme Court Review (contrasting NAMUDNO with Citizens United) in Constitutional Avoidance and Anti-Avoidance by the Roberts Court.

Whatever else one can say if the Supreme Court strikes section 5, one cannot say it was unexpected.