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The uncomfortable problem with America's greatest civil rights law - Ian Millhiser @ Vox
Vox - Gift LinkThe Voting Rights Act of 1965 is among the most successful laws in US history. And it is one of the most morally righteous things the United States of America has ever done.
The law was America’s first serious attempt since Reconstruction to build a multiracial democracy, and it succeeded beyond even the most radical post-Civil War Republicans’ dreams. On the day President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, Black voter registration rates in the Jim Crow haven of Mississippi were just 6.7 percent. Two years after the VRA became law, that rate was 60 percent.
So the Voting Rights Act, which the Republican justices are expected to take another bite out of during the Supreme Court’s new term, was a triumph. But it also rests on assumptions about how power is distributed in the United States that may no longer be true. The sad reality is that we may no longer be able to trust either the executive or the judicial branch with the powers given to them by the Voting Rights Act.
The central problem that the VRA targeted was illiberal states, ruled by white supremacists determined to cut Black Americans out of political power. In the mid-1960s, the federal government were the good guys on racial equality, led by its greatest champion to occupy the White House since President Ulysses S. Grant. In addition to the Voting Rights Act, Johnson signed laws banning race discrimination in employment, schools, hotels, restaurants, theaters, and housing.
So it made sense that his signature voting rights law centralizes power in the federal government. One key provision, which the Republican justices effectively repealed in 2013, required states with a history of race discrimination in elections to “preclear” any new election laws with federal officials in Washington, DC. Another, which is now before the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais, allows federal judges to intervene when a state enacts a law that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any US citizen to vote on account of race or color.”
The law was America’s first serious attempt since Reconstruction to build a multiracial democracy, and it succeeded beyond even the most radical post-Civil War Republicans’ dreams. On the day President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, Black voter registration rates in the Jim Crow haven of Mississippi were just 6.7 percent. Two years after the VRA became law, that rate was 60 percent.
So the Voting Rights Act, which the Republican justices are expected to take another bite out of during the Supreme Court’s new term, was a triumph. But it also rests on assumptions about how power is distributed in the United States that may no longer be true. The sad reality is that we may no longer be able to trust either the executive or the judicial branch with the powers given to them by the Voting Rights Act.
The central problem that the VRA targeted was illiberal states, ruled by white supremacists determined to cut Black Americans out of political power. In the mid-1960s, the federal government were the good guys on racial equality, led by its greatest champion to occupy the White House since President Ulysses S. Grant. In addition to the Voting Rights Act, Johnson signed laws banning race discrimination in employment, schools, hotels, restaurants, theaters, and housing.
So it made sense that his signature voting rights law centralizes power in the federal government. One key provision, which the Republican justices effectively repealed in 2013, required states with a history of race discrimination in elections to “preclear” any new election laws with federal officials in Washington, DC. Another, which is now before the Supreme Court in Louisiana v. Callais, allows federal judges to intervene when a state enacts a law that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any US citizen to vote on account of race or color.”
When you cannot trust the justices to apply the law equally, one wonders how they could weaponize one of America's most righteous and effective laws to help their own political party and to hurt their political enemies. Troubling piece from @imillhiser.bsky.social: www.vox.com/politics/464...
— Seth Maxon (@methsaxon.bsky.social) 2025-10-14T13:51:11.621Z