Did the fact that a law was on a 25-year reauthorization schedule just become a reason for invalidating it? Would the Court have had less reason to invalidate the VRA if it were authorized for just 10 years? 5 years? We doubt that the length of the authorization would have made much difference in this case with this Court, but it is interesting to speculate on whether Shelby County v. Holder will be cited by future courts to justify using a law’s period of authorization as one criterion in evaluating whether it has a rational basis.
More from Scott Adler and John Wilkerson on the Shelby decision. See also this earlier post.