1. I think there are votes in the H to pass a fix, but Boehner might punt using Hastert rule, and refuse to bring it up without majority support in Republican caucus
2. Potentially this decision is VERY DANGEROUS for the Republican party, because of the fact that Section 5 is still there. It is this I want to briefly explore
Congress needs to draw a new map of which states/jurisdictions would be covered. Some that were previously covered might not be, while others previously not covered would be.
And here is where the rubber could meet the road - the Hispanic vote. Republican refusal to even consider fixing Section 4 could be used to attack them as being anti-Hispanic, with real backlash potential.
Considering the current demographic patterns, which Markos and others have noted, this plays in a number of key states -
TX, CO, NV, AZ and NM for starters. Were the Republicans to lose all of those because of the Hispanic vote they would have no path to 270 electoral votes.
Thus there may be pressure on House Republicans from those states to do something about Section 4 to try to defuse a possible backlash.
In other words, even given the current makeup of the House, this decision is not as horrible as it could have been. We will have to see how it plays out over the next 3 years or so.