The dumb/evil half-plus-one of the Supreme Court strikes down a key part of the voting rights act, saying that eh, no big, it’s not like there are attempts to restrict voting based on race anymore, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg responds by ripping a honey badger-sized hole in their faces:

The number of discriminatory changes blocked or deterred by the preclearance requirement suggests that the state of voting rights in the covered jurisdictions would have been significantly different absent this remedy. Surveying the type of changes stopped by the preclearance procedure conveys a sense of the extent to which §5 continues to protect minority voting rights. Set out below are characteristic examples of changes blocked in the years leading up to the 2006 reauthorization:

In 1995, Mississippi sought to reenact a dual voter registration system, “which was initially enacted in 1892 to disenfranchise Black voters,” and for that reason, was struck down by a federal court in 1987.
H. R. Rep. No. 109–478, at 39.

Following the 2000 census, the City of Albany,Georgia, proposed a redistricting plan that DOJ found to be “designed with the purpose to limit and retrogress the increased black voting strength . . . in the city as a whole.” Id., at 37 (internal quotation marks omitted).

In 2001, the mayor and all-white five-member Board of Aldermen of Kilmichael, Mississippi, abruptly canceled the town’s election after “anunprecedented number” of African-American candidates announced they were running for office. DOJ required an election, and the town elected its first black mayor and three black aldermen. Id., at 36–37.

In 2006, this Court found that Texas’ attempt to redraw a congressional district to reduce the strength of Latino voters bore “the mark of intentional discrimination that could give rise to an equal protection violation,” and ordered the district redrawn in compliance with the VRA. League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U. S. 399, 440 (2006). In response, Texas sought to undermine this Court’s order by curtailing early voting in the district, but was blocked by an action to enforce the§5 preclearance requirement. See Order in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Texas, No. 06–cv–1046 (WD Tex.), Doc. 8.

In 2003, after African-Americans won a majority of the seats on the school board for the first time in history, Charleston County, South Carolina, proposed an at-large voting mechanism for the board.The proposal, made without consulting any of the African-American members of the school board, was found to be an “‘exact replica'” of an earlier voting scheme that, a federal court had determined,violated the VRA. 811 F. Supp. 2d 424, 483 (DDC 2011). See also S. Rep. No. 109–295, at 309. DOJ invoked §5 to block the proposal.

In 1993, the City of Millen, Georgia, proposed to delay the election in a majority-black district by two years, leaving that district without representation on the city council while the neighboring majority white district would have three representatives. 1 Section 5 Hearing 744. DOJ blocked the proposal. The county then sought to move a polling place from a predominantly black neighborhood in the city to an inaccessible location in a predominantly white neighborhood outside city limits. Id., at 816.

In 2004, Waller County, Texas, threatened to prosecute two black students after they announced their intention to run for office. The county then attempted to reduce the availability of early voting in that election at polling places near a historically black university. 679 F. 3d, at 865–866.

In 1990, Dallas County, Alabama, whose county seat is the City of Selma, sought to purge its voter rolls of many black voters. DOJ rejected the purge as discriminatory, noting that it would have disqualified many citizens from voting “simply because they failed to pick up or return a voter update form, when there was no valid requirement that they do so.” 1 Section 5 Hearing 356.

These examples, and scores more like them, fill the pages of the legislative record. The evidence was indeed sufficient to support Congress’ conclusion that “racialdiscrimination in voting in covered jurisdictions [remained] serious and pervasive.”

In other words, what part of this don’t you stupid motherfuckers understand? As to the idea of Congress overreaching, it says in the actual Constitution that they can reach over WHATEVER in order to make laws that prevent the stupidly racist assholes among us from blockading the polls:

The Fifteenth Amendment, which targets precisely and only racial discrimination in voting rights, states that, in this domain, “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”2 In choosing this language, the Amendment’sframers invoked Chief Justice Marshall’s formulation of the scope of Congress’ powers under the Necessary andProper Clause:

“Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope ofthe constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421 (1819) (emphasis added).

But she is trying to teach a dog a math problem, in arguing with Thomas, who is like hey, I got mine, what’s the big deal? And Roberts and Scalia and Kennedy and Alito, who are all, eh, we’re over the whole racism thing. We let a black guy in through the White House front door, after all.

A.