AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.
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LYNDON B JOHNSON: The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice.
RASCOE: This week, the Supreme Court weakened a central part of that law. We'll have more on the civil rights history behind the Voting Rights Act in a moment. But first, NPR's Carrie Johnson has been following the court action, and she's here now to talk more about it. Welcome, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
RASCOE: Carrie, the Supreme Court case this week threw out legislative maps in Louisiana, but that decision is going to have much bigger consequences, right?
C JOHNSON: Absolutely. The conservative supermajority on the court voted 6-3 to strike down maps in that state, but the reasoning in the opinion by Justice Sam Alito makes it really hard for other people moving forward to use a key part of the Voting Rights Act Section 2 to challenge redistricting maps with a discriminatory effect. The Congressional Black Caucus is warning that could lead to far fewer Black members of Congress in the South. And this decision would apply not just to Congress, but also to candidates running for local office.
Harvard law professor Nick Stephanopoulos put it this way on social media - light a candle for the Voting Rights Act, which died today, age 60. Now, Section 2 of the law was not totally struck down, but having to prove intent means it won't help minority voters in virtually all circumstances.
RASCOE: Can you tell us more about how we got here?
C JOHNSON: The Voting Rights Act came about because of people marching in the streets in the 1960s, and by most accounts, it's one of the most important and successful laws ever in the history of this country. But over the past 13 years, the conservative Supreme Court has been paring away parts of the law. The argument from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Alito is that the law has done its job. The kinds of impediments to voting that existed in the '60s don't exist today, and so the federal government and the courts don't need to play a big role to police elections and maps the way they used to. But the liberal justices say there's a problem with that. Discrimination still exists, but it's not as overt as it used to be. And to raise the bar to prove intentional discrimination in legislative maps is going to be near impossible now.
RASCOE: So this Louisiana case is the latest in a string of conservative Supreme Court rulings on the right to vote. When did this new era start?
C JOHNSON: Most legal experts say it started in 2013, and that's when the court - led by Chief Justice Roberts - blew up another part of the Voting Rights Act that involves the federal government role in preapproving election changes in places with a history of discrimination. Before then, the federal government had a right to preclear changes to polling places and times to be sure they wouldn't harm minority voters. But in that 2013 case, the conservative Supreme Court majority said the way that section of the law worked was out of date, and it would be up to Congress to fix it. Congress, of course, has not done anything. Since then, the Supreme Court has said it won't weigh in on other cases that involve partisan gerrymandering, and now this week, it's made it harder to prove discrimination in redistricting.
RASCOE: Carrie, this week, you've been talking to people who enforced the Voting Rights Act. What are you hearing?
C JOHNSON: Kristen Clarke led the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department under President Biden. She's now general counsel at the NAACP. Here's how she reacted to the Supreme Court ruling this week.
KRISTEN CLARKE: Devastating decision that stands to turn the clock back decades in terms of the progress that we had been making in opening up the doors of democracy for all people in our country.
C JOHNSON: She says there's been a coordinated strategy to tear down the Voting Rights Act, and she says the Supreme Court has been a willing participant. John Roberts, for instance, has been working and writing on these issues since the Reagan era.
RASCOE: How are conservatives reacting to this decision?
C JOHNSON: The White House says the new court decision returns the law to its original intent, which was to protect against intentional racial discrimination. Bob Driscoll helped run the Civil Rights Division under President George W. Bush. He's now a lawyer in Washington. Driscoll told me he was not surprised by the court ruling this week because the high court has been moving more broadly in terms of race neutrality in cases involving employment and affirmative action at universities.
BOB DRISCOLL: And it's the court saying yes here too. When drawing district lines, you cannot explicitly be taking race into account.
C JOHNSON: Twenty years ago, Justice Roberts wrote, this is a sordid business, this divvying up by race. That came in a dissent in a case that involved redistricting in Texas. Now John Roberts is in the majority, and the Voting Rights Act is completely transformed.
RASCOE: That's NPR Supreme Court correspondent Carrie Johnson. Thank you so much for joining us.
C JOHNSON: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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