But it’s on life support From Professor Melissa Murray: Some initial thoughts on Allen v. Milligan. Media is trumpeting this as a “victory” for the Voting Rights Act. And it is. And I don’t want to be a turd in the punchbowl… but this is pretty weak sauce from this Court. First, this doesn’t “strengthen” the VRA. It preserves the status quo. And the status quo is that this Court has done an A+ job of hobbling the VRA over the last 10 years. In 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, it eviscerated the preclearance formula. The preclearance regime required states with a history of voting discrimination to first “preclear” any changes to their voting rules and regs with the DOJ or a three-judge federal court panel The Court invalidated the preclearance formula on the ground that progress had been made and minorities were voting and blah blah blah. This progress narrative prompted RBG to note in dissent that throwing out the preclearance formula was like throwing out your umbrella in a rainstorm because you weren’t getting wet. She was right. SCOTUS didn’t invalidate the whole preclearance regime–just the formula. And Congress could have written a new preclearance formula… if it weren’t super-polarized and dysfunctional. As it happened, Congress did not write a new formula. And the preclearance regime died. Which has led to an uptick in laws that seem aimed at suppressing the vote among certain constituencies. When confronted with this possibility in Shelby County, CJ Roberts, who wrote for…