HuffPo: “If the Obama administration needs a plan to deal with the likely death of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, it may be able to dust off its blueprint from 2009….Unbeknownst to the public, President Barack Obama’s administration had prepared a statement from Attorney General Eric Holder for the possibility that the court would strike down Section 5. Officials were so surpised the court didn’t toss out the section, in fact, that an alternative Holder statement — praising the ruling as a ‘victory for voting rights in America’ — had to be written the day of the decision. A written statement wasn’t the only thing the administration did to prepare for a possible adverse court ruling in 2009. Greg Craig, the White House counsel at the time, recalled that his team “worked close with, kept track of, commented on, and met with an internal DOJ task force” on the Voting Rights Act issue. Other officials confirmed that there was a Voting Rights Working Group made up of both Justice Department and White House officials, and records show Holder was briefed by the group roughly a month before the Supreme Court decision.”