Justice Scalia: Well, let me tell you how we — it seems to me we’ve limited it in — in the Columbus case, Columbus v. Harrah’s Garage and Wrecker Services, Inc. We said that, “The clause — the clause’s limitation to motor carrier services with respect to the transportation of property massively limits the scope of preemption to include only laws, regulations, and other provisions that single out for special treatment motor carriers of property.” And here you’ve told us that this case doesn’t involve any law that singles them out for — for special treatment. To the contrary, it’s the general consumer protection law.
MR. BOUFFARD: Well -
JUSTICE SCALIA: So you want us to eat those words, they were wrong, or — or somehow you don’t come within them?
MR. BOUFFARD: Respectfully, Justice Scalia, I think those words came from your dissent in that case.
Justice Scalia: Ah. I forgot that.
Justice Scalia: I think [the VRA is] very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. . . . Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. . . .
Justice Sotomayor: Do you think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement in Section 5?
Justice Scalia: But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.
Justice Scalia: Will you give me an example where one… somebody desecrates the flag in order to show that he agrees with the policies of the United States.