Pam Karlan: Why Section 2 Matters to *Existing* Minority

The following is an important guest post from Pam Karlan :

In a recent post describing his amicus brief in Louisiana v. Callais , Nick Stephanopoulos points out a “large decline in racially-polarized voting” in many jurisdictions may preclude plaintiffs in those places from showing an essential element of a section 2 case.

This fact should be answer enough to the concern Justice Kavanaugh floated in his concurrence in Allen v. Milligan —that even if amended section 2 were justified “for some period of time,” its requirements “cannot extend indefinitely into the future.” They don’t. As I’ve explained elsewhere , even though section 2 contains no formal “sunset provision,” the requirement that plaintiffs prove racially polarized voting provides a clear “durational limit on