A posting at National Review.  National Review says that “Roberts and Scalia are right.”  National Review:

An obvious question that the government should have been prepared to answer was one asked by Roberts: Which state today has the worst ratio between black and white turnout? Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. either didn’t know the answer or pretended not to. The chief justice informed him that it was Massachusetts. . . .

However, while decrying the exchange between Roberts and Verrilli, and claiming his state has high voter registration, Galvin never disputed Roberts’s actual point about the disparity between black and white turnout in Massachusetts. . . .

Moreover, anyone who had read the opinion of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Shelby County case knows that Roberts was citing information from that opinion. As Judge Stephen Williams pointed out on page 14 of his dissent, “Most of the worst offenders — states where in 2004 whites turned out or were registered in significantly higher proportion than African-Americans — are not covered. These include, for example, the three worst — Massachusetts, Washington, and Colorado.” This point was uncontested by the Justice Department in its brief filed with the Supreme Court. . . .

Section 5 has made race a dominant factor in redistricting. Democrats like it because the majority-minority racial districts created to satisfy Section 5 provide safe seats for black and Hispanic Democrats. That is the very definition of a racial entitlement. Those same majority-minority districts drain Democratic voters from surrounding districts, creating safe Republican seats surrounding those almost challenge-proof, racially gerrymandered Democratic districts. Much of the support for Section 5 is motivated by crass, partisan objectives that both parties share, especially the entrenchment and protection of incumbents.