A case that was seen as one of the most important voting rights cases in recent years came to an anticlimax Monday, surprising many who had anticipated — or feared — that a major provision of the Voting Rights Act would be struck down.

The Court sidestepped the constitutionality of the VRA’s preclearance requirement to decide the case based on the fact that Texas’s Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District and other districts like it are, indeed, political subdivisions that could “bail out” and release themselves from the requirement.

Uncertain now, though, is what the Court’s decision signals for the future legality of the VRA and how Congress will respond to preserve the Act.

University of Michigan law professor Ellen Katz said that she had believed after a tense oral argument in April that the Court would toss out the entire section of the Act under question.

The case was presumed to be a difficult one for the government to win, given that several Justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, vocally suggested that they had little use for the VRA.

Congress’ renewal of the Act in 2006 passed both houses with near-unanimous majorities that masked lengthy debate and serious research into the continuing need for Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires that states and localities with a history of voting irregularities clear any changes with the Justice Department.

Katz recalled the “deep skepticism” that several justices expressed in oral argument in April. Justice Roberts had been particularly critical of the Act’s relevance, asking whether Congress should “extend the Act to Massachusetts” since Texas now has a higher rate of registered Latino voters.

Justice Kennedy, too, had been on the offensive. “Is the sovereignty of Georgia entitled to less respect than the sovereign dignity of Ohio?” he asked the government lawyer. “Does the United States take that position today?”

But when the Court handed down its decision, its 8-1 opinion reflected a conscious avoidance of the looming constitutional issue. Acknowledging the successes of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Roberts wrote that “whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today.”

Speculation about why the Court preserved the Act when at least five Justices seemed prepared to overturn it runs wide. But much of it comes back to the historical magnitude of the Act itself.

Ryan Haygood, Co-Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s political participation group, saw in the Court’s decision an acknowledgement of Section 5 as the crux of the VRA. Calling the lawsuit a “challenge aimed at taking out the heart of the Act,” Haygood emphasized that the Court had left intact the “core” of the VRA — despite some commentators’ predictions that Section 5 was on its deathbed.

In part because of Section 5’s importance, some see in the Court’s decision an inclination to move gradually and with deference to Congress on any repeal.

“Striking down the Voting Rights Act is a huge thing to do,” said Katz. Instead, she said, the Court is giving Congress notice to modify the Act so that it is less vulnerable to future legal challenges.

Of the different directions Congress could take to altering the act, Katz believes that some — like changing the reach of the Act based on current voting irregularities — would be “politically impossible.” More feasible, she said, is a continued effort to make bailing out of Section 5 easier for jurisdictions, with Congress’s help. As the Court opinion noted, only 17 of 12,000 covered political subdivisions have successfully lifted their preclearance requirements.

“Congress could do more to help jurisdictions to free themselves of special restrictions,” Katz said. The federal government could contact jurisdictions and show them how they can be eligible for bailout. “And if they’re not,” she said, “help them get there.”

Giving more jurisdictions the ability to bail out “let some of the air out of that tension” surrounding Section 5, said Haygood. Giving more jurisdictions the ability to bail out, he said, “really gives jurisdictions a huge incentive to discourage practices of discrimination or show that they are respecting voting rights of citizens.”

But the Court’s opinion, while upholding the Act, contains plenty of open-ended questions about Section 5’s legality. Even with a broadened bailout clause the VRA remains a target for another lawsuit — whether from a district that tries to bail out and can’t, or one that simply rejects the notion of a bailout.

It’s too early to tell where future challenges will come from, Haygood said, but “this is definitely not the last.”

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