Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and subsection (b) of Section 4, which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of racial discrimination in voting..
On June 25, 2013, the Court ruled by a 5 to 4 vote that Section 4(b) was unconstitutional because the coverage formula was based on data over 40 years old, making it no longer responsive to current needs and therefore an impermissible burden on the constitutional principles of federalism and equal sovereignty of the states. The Court did not strike down Section 5, but without Section 4(b), no jurisdiction will be subject to Section 5 preclearance unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.
Claims have been made that the ruling has made it easier for state officials to engage in voter suppression. Research shows that preclearance led to increases in minority congressional representation and minority voter turnout. Five years after the ruling, nearly 1,000 U.S. polling places had closed, many of them in predominantly African-American counties. There were also cuts to early voting, purges of voter rolls, and imposition of strict voter ID laws. A 2026 study found that the ruling increased the racial turnout gap, translating to hundreds of thousands of uncast ballots by voters of color in the 2022 election.
These effects were concentrated in counties previously restrained by preclearance. A 2011 study in the American Political Science Review found that changing and reducing voting locations can reduce voter turnout. In response to the ruling, some states have enacted State Voting Rights Acts that include comprehensive state-level preclearance programs modeled after Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Background Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to address entrenched racial discrimination in voting, "an insidious and pervasive evil which had been perpetuated in certain parts of our country through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution". Section 5 of the Act requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal approval, or "preclearance", before changing voting laws or practices, to ensure the proposed changes do not "deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group". A preclearance determination must be issued by either the United States Attorney General or a panel of three judges serving on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Section 4(b) specifies the "coverage formula", or criteria, used to determine which states and local jurisdictions are subject to preclearance under Section 5. A jurisdiction is covered if a prohibited "test or device" was a requirement for voting or registering to vote as of November 1964, 1968, or 1972, and less than half of the eligible voting population was registered to vote or had voted in that year's election. Section 4(a) allows covered jurisdictions to "bail out" of the preclearance requirement if they made sufficient progress in ending discriminatory voting practices.
The Supreme Court upheld the preclearance requirement and coverage formula as constitutional enforcement legislation under Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment in South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966).South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966). The preclearance requirement initially was set to expire five years after enactment, but amendments to the Act in 1970, 1975, and 1982 reauthorized Section 5; the 1970 and 1975 amendments also updated the coverage formula. The Supreme Court upheld these reauthorizations as constitutional in United States v. Georgia (1973),. City of Rome v. United States (1980),. and Lopez v. Monterey County (1999). In 2006, Congress reauthorized Section 5 for an additional 25 years, but did not change the coverage formula from the 1975 version.
Shortly after the 2006 reauthorization, a Texas utility district sought to bail out from Section 5 preclearance and, in the alternative, challenged the constitutionality of Section 5. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder that government entities that did not register voters, such as the utility district, had the right to file suit to bail out of coverage. Because this decision resolved the issue, the Court invoked constitutional avoidance and declined to address the constitutionality of Section 5. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from this portion of the opinion and would have declared Section 5 unconstitutional.Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193 (2009).
History
District Court Shelby County, in the covered jurisdiction of Alabama, sued the U.S. Attorney General in the U.S. District Court for D.C. in Washington, D.C., seeking a declaratory judgment that sections 4(b) and 5 are facially unconstitutional and a permanent injunction against their enforcement. On September 21, 2011, Judge John D. Bates upheld the provisions, finding that the evidence before Congress in 2006 was sufficient to justify reauthorizing Section 5 and continuing Section 4(b)'s coverage formula.
Arguing before Bates were Kristen Clarke, who argued that it was reasonable for Congress to "stay the course" in renewing Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in order to root out discrimination, and Bert Rein, a lawyer for Shelby County, who argued that the environment in the country was "totally different" when Section 5 was first enacted.
Court of Appeals On May 18, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision upholding the constitutionality of Section 4(b) and Section 5. After surveying the evidence in the Congressional Record associated with the 2006 reauthorization of Section 5, the appellate court accepted Congress's conclusion that Section 2 litigation remained inadequate in the covered jurisdictions to protect the rights of minority voters, that Section 5 was therefore still justified, and that the coverage formula continued to pass constitutional muster.
Supreme Court The Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear the case on the limited question of "whether Congress' decision in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act exceeded its authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and thus violated the Tenth Amendment and Article IV of the United States Constitution." The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on February 27, 2013. Media coverage of the justices' comments during oral arguments portrayed the Court as appearing likely to hold Section 5 or Section 4(b) unconstitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia drew criticism from civil rights leaders for expressing his belief during oral argument that Congress reauthorized Section 5 not because the legislation was necessary, but because it constituted a "racial entitlement" that Congress was unlikely to end.
A coalition of four states provided an amicus brief to the Supreme Court expressing support for Section 5 and noting that the preclearance provision did not impose a burden on them. The coalition was led by New York and included Mississippi, North Carolina and California.
Opinions Majority
The Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) as unconstitutional in a June 25, 2013 ruling. The majority opinion was delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito. The Court held that Section 4(b) exceeded Congress' power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, reasoning that the coverage formula conflicts with the constitutional principles of federalism and "equal sovereignty of the states" because the disparate treatment of the states is "based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day" and thus is not responsive to current needs. The Court held that Congress cannot subject a state to preclearance based simply on past discrimination. It noted that since the coverage formula was last modified in 1975, the country "has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions". The Court declared that the Fifteenth Amendment "commands that the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race or color, and it gives Congress the power to enforce that command. The Amendment is not designed to punish for the past; its purpose is to ensure a better future."
Roberts wrote that the Act was immensely successful "at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process" and noted that the U.S. has made great progress thanks to the Act. But he added: "If Congress had started from scratch in 2006, it plainly could not have enacted the present coverage formula." According to the Court, "Regardless of how to look at the record no one can fairly say that it shows anything approaching the 'pervasive,' 'flagrant,' 'widespread,' and 'rampant' discrimination that faced Congress in 1965, and that clearly distinguished the covered jurisdictions from the rest of the nation."
The Court did not subject Section 4(b) to the "congruence and proportionality" standard of review or address whether that standard is the appropriate measure to use when determining the constitutionality of legislation passed pursuant to Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court also noted the federalism concerns the Section 5 preclearance requirement raised, but did not reach the issue of whether Section 5 is constitutional. However, because the Section 5 preclearance requirement applies only to jurisdictions covered by the Section 4(b) coverage formula, the decision rendered Section 5 inoperable unless Congress enacts a new coverage formula.
Concurrence
Thomas wrote a concurring opinion expressing his view that Section 5 is also unconstitutional for the same reasons the Court held Section 4(b) unconstitutional.
Dissent Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. The dissent would have held that Congress had sufficient evidence before it to determine that the coverage formula remained responsive to current needs. The dissent acknowledged that discrimination in voting has decreased in the covered jurisdictions since the Voting Rights Act's enactment, but it attributed much of that decrease to the Act itself, noting that "[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."
Reaction The opinion was controversial, prompting heavy media coverage of reactions from political leaders, activists, and the legal community.
Public officials