August 9, 2025

On Wednesday, we celebrated the Voting Rights Act’s (VRA) birthday. I fear it may very well be its last.

It is hard to imagine today, but the VRA was, until recently, a bipartisan achievement claimed by both parties. Even during the tumultuous days of the Civil Rights era, 60 years ago, enough Republicans and Democrats managed to come together to pass the VRA by a vote of 77-19.

It was a landmark piece of legislation that shaped our nation. It outlawed literacy tests. It required oversight for states with a history of discriminatory voting laws and practices. It dramatically increased voter registration and participation.

For years, support for the VRA was unquestioned. It was the standard. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan — the conservative Republican founder of the modern GOP — signed a 25-year extension of the VRA into law, declaring, “The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished.”

In 2006 — under President George W. Bush — the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 to reauthorize the VRA. “The right of ordinary men and women to determine their own political future lies at the heart of the American experiment,” Bush said.

Since then, something dark shifted in the Republican Party and in American politics. Maybe it was something that had always been creeping under the surface. Maybe it was right in front of us. Maybe we refused to see it.

But, somewhere between Donald Trump demanding to see President Barack Obama’s birth certificate and taking the Oath of Office, the Supreme Court felt empowered to suggest that racism was over in Shelby County. “Our country has changed,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”

Shelby County gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, ending preclearance requirements for states that had the ugliest histories of discriminatory voting practices. Their reasoning? It was outdated, no longer relevant and we simply didn’t need it anymore.

Apparently, we had progressed so far as a society that we no longer needed to check in on states that had Jim Crow laws less than 50 years earlier.

Yet, in his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts tried to settle fears, promising that the decision “in no way affects the permanent, nationwide ban on racial discrimination in voting found in [Section] 2.”

Well, that may no longer be the case. We now find ourselves in 2025, with the future of Section 2 very much in doubt as the Supreme Court is set to rehear a critical redistricting case from Louisiana that could eviscerate the last part of the VRA.

For those who may not remember, the Court punted the case challenging Louisiana’s congressional map to next term. The case, which was brought using a group of self-identified “non-Black” voters, hasn’t yet been rescheduled for a reargument. However, the Court recently specified a new question: “Whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.”

As I reflect on the events of this week and the anniversary of the VRA, I am left asking how we got here so quickly. Less than 20 years ago, Congress unanimously voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. Now, the Republican Party is ready to throw the whole thing out. And the Supreme Court, never immune to the political temperature, seems confident enough to end the very part of the VRA the Chief Justice assured us would be untouched.

During the oral arguments in Shelby County, Justice Scalia suggested that the VRA reauthorization had passed so easily in 2006 because of political pressure — or what he called a “perpetuation of racial entitlement.” He posited that politicians didn’t want to oppose something called the Voting Rights Act.

For Scalia, this notion gave him ammunition to strike down Section 5. He wasn’t stepping on Congress’ toes — he was simply doing what they didn’t have the guts to do.

At the time, those of us who supported the VRA were outraged. How dare he discount the bipartisan support the VRA had enjoyed for decades! Now I wonder if Scalia understood something about the Republican Party that I, and many others, wanted to deny.

Back in 2006, Scalia understood that there was shame for Republicans in opposing the VRA. Now, with Trump in office, there is no shame in being seen as a racist in the GOP. There is no shame in openly supporting discriminatory voter laws. There is no shame in advocating to drag the United States 60 years into the past.

There is no shame, it turns out, in making America great again — great for everyone it was so great for over 200 years ago. Screw everyone else.

In 2013, Donald Trump and Shelby County were symptoms of a dark creature lurking in the Republican Party and United States society — a creature that is now out of the shadows and trampling on our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.

More to the point: Donald Trump and Shelby County were never separate conclusions. Election results and Supreme Court decisions are never living in two different universes. They are direct reactions to each other, American culture and the political environment.

The Republican Party won the White House and Congress by campaigning on racism, sexism and xenophobia. They’re pushing for blatantly racist congressional maps in Texas, Florida and Indiana. As sad as it is, it makes perverse sense that the conservative Supreme Court of this era will use this moment to kill Section 2 of the VRA.

But that doesn’t mean we give up. That doesn’t mean we back down. I started Democracy Docket in 2020 to put a spotlight on voting rights and free and fair elections. From Texas gerrymandering to the VRA under attack, this mission is now critical.

Between now and when the Court rules in the Louisiana case, we will insist that the VRA is good law. We will not allow the Court to shatter the crown jewel of American democracy without a fight under a bright spotlight.

And I make this promise to you: if the Supreme Court guts the VRA, we will keep fighting. We will keep challenging attacks on voting rights. We will keep standing up for free and fair elections. We will keep defending our democracy. I hope that you will join me in that fight.

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