Louisiana v. Callais · ¶128

I begin with some history—both with what led originally to the Voting Rights Act and with how the current Section 2 came to be. The point is not to deliver a eulogy for the law—though, in truth, the Court's step-by-step slaying of voting rights now makes one appropriate. Rather, the object is to reveal how far today's decision repudiates past, and rightfully still controlling, congressional choices. As I'll later explain, the majority now demands that vote-dilution plaintiffs muster proof of racially discriminatory motive. See infra, at 149–158. In that way, the decision echoes an earlier one of this Court, which also held that Section 2 should function as an intent test. See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980). But Congress, as you'll soon see, amended Section 2 to reject that view: In light of the way voting discrimination had operated since the Fifteenth Amendment's adoption,…

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