The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Shelby County v. Holder belongs to the second of these contending narratives.12 The Court attempts to give expression to a cause that has not been able to succeed either on the battlefield or through popular representation, and found only fleeting support in constitutional doctrine. At the time the VRA was passed, it made sense, from a legislative point of view, to focus on “bad actors” (through a Section 4 “coverage formula”) and to put a burden on these proven offenders to demonstrate their proposed laws would not discriminate.