Just had a thought while watching Chris Hayes and Amy Klobuchar discuss Voting Rights Act preclearance, and it struck me as worth tossing out here for discussion. So here goes.
The Supreme Court in its wisdom demands that Congress refresh its designation of states/localities subject to preclearance. Politically, enacting any delineation will be damn tough, and enacting a geographic delineation will be tougher.
But why do we need to look to geography? Why not specify that any jurisdiction found to have violated the VRA through after-the-fact review will thereafter be subject to preclearance for, say, the next 20 years. That ought to pass S.Ct. muster (ok, I'm assuming they have some minimal respect for the rule of law), and once in place it would both provide a steep deterrent to discriminatory voting rules changes (which is the point, after all) and a good mechanism for preventing repeat offenses.
A good idea? What do you think?