This week, the Supreme Court finally killed off the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I've spent the past decade studying the VRA and the attacks on it, so I thought I would offer some historical perspective, and where I think we're headed. This will be a long thread; buckle up. We have to go way back. After the Civil War, Congress and the states passed the 13th and 14th Amendments to outlaw slavery (in most cases), to ensure birthright citizenship, and to grant equal protection under the law. These were huge, and the country is better for them. But Black Southerners and their allies in Congress knew it wasn't enough: Without access to the ballot, they would continue to face political, economic, and physical exploitation and terror. In 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified, declaring that the right to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It also gave Congress the power to enforce the Amendment "by appropriate legislation" And Congress did so! They passed the Enforcement Acts, intended to combat white violence throughout the South and to ensure free and fair elections. And then SCOTUS overturned the laws, determining that they exceeded Congress's scope. Abetted by a Supreme Court that refused to enforce the 15th Amendment, the Mississippi Plan was enacted throughout the South by the early 20th century. Poll taxes, literacy tests, white primaries, and grandfather clauses obliterated Black political power. It would remain that way for generations But at the end of World War II, Black veterans were finished fighting overseas for democracy, and returned home to a racial apartheid state. Maceo Snipes, and others, demanded the right to vote. Maceo Snipes, and others, cast a ballot. Maceo Snipes, and others, were murdered for doing so.
These heroes would inspire the growing Black Freedom Movement. Snipes's murder, for instance, prompted a young 17 year old to write his first letter to the editor demanding full equality for Black Americans. That 17 year old was Martin Luther King, Jr. By the 1940s and 1950s, the Supreme Court was also liberalizing. They struck down the white primary system, and started encouraging Congress to go further. Congress would meet that charge, passing Civil Rights Acts in 1957 and 1960 The 1957 Act didn't really empower the government to do much, but it did elevate the Civil Rights Section of DOJ to a full "Division." But more importantly, it created the US Commission on Civil Rights The USCCR would be a powerful voice in the following decade as it called out the moral injury that vote suppression in the South inflicted on the nation. Its reports would be hugely relied upon in subsequent testimony for the 1965 VRA From 1959:
The 1960 Act went a bit further, and contained the seeds of what would become "preclearance" in the 1965 Act. In 1960, Congress allowed federal judges to appoint federal registrars in places "pursuant to a pattern or practice" of discrimination. Not every single law would need to be challenged But it had holes: It relied on SOUTHERN federal judges to appoint these registrars. These judges, of course, were all white Southerners. By 1965 the provision had only been used twice. One of the times was in Dallas County, AL. You might recognize the name of Dallas's seat better: Selma, Alabama. By 1965, Black activists had been working in Selma for years. Dallas County's sheriff, Jim Clark, had resisted them at every step of the way. On Feb 18, Clark was present for the violent repression of a voting rights protest. At the protest, 26YO Jimmie Lee Jackson was attacked. He died days later
Shortly thereafter, organizers planned a march in Jackson's honor from Selma to Montgomery. Clark and his posse attacked the protestors on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The day rightly lives in infamy as Bloody Sunday The national mood changed immediately. Suddenly, Americans of all stripes demanded action. Congress saw the political imperative, and LBJ was a stalwart supporter. And -- key to all of this -- SCOTUS indicated a willingness to allow the federal government to act A week after Selma, Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress. It was one of the most important speeches of the 20th century, and made the moral case for the VRA
Before continuing, I want to pause to note that this is the moment we now find ourselves back in. The most important provisions of the VRA are now gone. More from the USSCR, this time from a 1961 report:
The VRA was passed quickly by today's standards. In early August it was signed into law, and Johnson enforced it immediately, sending registrars south
The VRA had two major provisions: Section 2 -- often called the "sword" -- and Section 5 -- often called the "shield" Section 2 allowed the DOJ and private plaintiffs to bring lawsuits to strike down laws that had discriminatory EFFECTS (I'm compressing history here a bit; you'll excuse the lack of Bolden / 1982 discussion). If a law fell harder on voters of color, it was illegal; the sword could strike it down Importantly, it applied to laws that made CASTING a ballot harder (what we call "vote denial") and also laws, like gerrymanders and at-large elections, that prevented ballots that were cast from translating into real power ("vote dilution"). It was a powerful tool Section 5, meanwhile -- the shield -- was a very special provision. It required states and localities with a history of race discrimination in voting to get permission from the federal government BEFORE they could change their laws. The shield blocked the laws from ever going into effect Here, the burden of proof was on the localities. They had to prove that the proposed change would NOT fall harder on voters of color. This, like Section 2, eventually applied to vote denial and vote dilution schemes alike The VRA was challenged, and upheld, immediately. On the one-year anniversary of Selma, SCOTUS called it good law. “After enduring nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment,” the Chief Justice wrote, “Congress might well decide to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims.” Over the course of its life, Section 5 blocked thousands of discriminatory policies from ever going into effect. Importantly, these were concentrated at the LOCAL level. Most discriminatory policies are not the statewide ones that get so much attention, but rather local ones
Similarly, vote DILUTION schemes were the most frequently blocked. "Old fashioned" or "first generation" schemes to keep voters off the roles fell out of use
But then, on June 25, 2013, SCOTUS killed preclearance. In a case called Shelby County v. Holder, they wrote that "things had changed" in the South, and the law was no longer justified. It was a bad decision.
It had immediate impacts. Within minutes -- literally less than 20 minutes -- Texas announced it would be enforcing a law that the federal government had already determined was racially discriminatory TWICE
The shield was shattered, and the effects are still with us. Since 2013, the racial turnout gap has exploded in places once subject to preclearance. It has grown especially quickly in places where the DOJ blocked a discriminatory law from going into effect journals.uchicago.edu
But that's not all. It has also led to widespread racial vote dilution, especially at the local level. Municipalities once covered by Section 5 have been "bleaching" their population, annexing whiter areas and driving down the share of the electorate that is minority
Mike Miller and I have been studying all of this for years, I should add. If you are interested in the history of the VRA and the effects of Shelby County, you could consider preordering our book, which will be out in October: bookshop.org
bookshop.org
When the Roberts Court suspended preclearance in 2013, however, they made us a promise. "Section 2 is permanent," they wrote. It was not. In a 2021 case called Brnovich v. DNC, SCOTUS effectively ended the ability to use Section 2 to strike down "vote denial" laws -- you'll recall that these are the sorts of laws that make CASTING a ballot more difficult. Since 2021, NO Section 2 lawsuit against a vote denial law has been successful And this week, they came for the vote DILUTION powers of Section 2. By making it virtually impossible to prove that racial vote dilution has occurred, SCOTUS has done to Section 2's powers against vote dilution that they did to Section 5 and Section 2 vis a vis vote denial in 2021 As Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent this week, "Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter." As @robmickey.bsky.social points out, other parts of the VRA are still somewhat operative. Section 203, for instance, requires election materials in some places to be translated into other languages But as of April 29, 2026, there is no federal statute in the United States of America that can stop racially discriminatory voting laws from going into effect, or can be used to litigate against them once on the books. Folks, these are the stakes. Black Americans spent a century fighting and dying for the VRA. It is no more. It falls to all of us to pick the work back up, and carry on. Lament. Rage. Cry. Scream. I've done all these and more this week. But it will take our demanding it for it to happen I'll leave you with where we end the book:
I am being told that it is apparently "not icky" to end this with another plug for the book at Princeton University Press so here, once again, is a link to pre-order:
bookshop.org
Adding this from @donmoyn.bsky.social to the end, which you should read too: bsky.app
New, from me: This should be a clarifying moment about the relationship the Supreme Court's opposition to representative democracy in America. Lets look at some graphs that make this point. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com
donmoynihan.substack.com