[JoeRedskin]

It’s simple. The Court held Congress to the hard task of making sure that their legislative enactments addressed current needs in a Constitutional manner. As FRPLG said, Congress "can't come up with a law (or part of a law) to treat states disproportionately in-perpetuity".

In the decision, Roberts held the Congress to the strict limits of the Constitution and simply fulfilled the articulated role of the Court – determine whether Congressional enactments pass judicial muster. To me, that is not “judicial activism”. Judicial activism is creating rights not enumerated in the Constitution and using them to justify or strike down legislation which otherwise constitutionally compliant (the most famous example is the right of privacy found to exist by the Warren Court but not articulated anywhere in the Constitution).

Roberts did what the Court is supposed to do, hold Congress feet to the fire by making them craft legislation compliant with the federalism enumerated in the Constitution. The opinion simply requires Congress to balance and consider all parties rights – in light of current conditions – and craft solutions reflective of those solutions through means the least intrusive on all Constitutionally guaranteed rights. The VRA does not, and did not when reenacted, reflect the changed conditions which justified its extraordinary intrusion on Constitutional guarantees in 1965. It was therefore appropriately deemed unconstitutional.