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VOTING RIGHTS ACT ‘ON LIFE SUPPORT’ AMID RIGHT-WING ATTACKS  
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Brett Wilkins
August 6, 2025
Common Dreams
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_ Now, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority is poised to "end
voting rights as we know them." _

Then-U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act
while onlookers including Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stand by, in
Washington, D.C. on August 6, 1965., (Photo: Digital Public Library of
America)

 

As the Voting Rights Act turned 60 on Wednesday, advocates highlighted
right-wing attacks on the landmark legislation and called on Congress
to pass a long-stagnant bill aimed at restoring and strengthening one
of the most important civil rights laws in U.S. history.

The VRA, signed into law
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1965 by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson amid a groundswell of civil
rights activism, was meant to ensure that state and local governments
could not "deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United
States to vote on account of race or color."

However, the law has been eroded
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recent decades by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the
country, including through racially rigged
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other gerrymandered
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maps, restrictions
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registration, reduction
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early voting options, and voter identification laws
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measures disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters, and some
GOP officials have admitted
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they are intended to give Republican candidates an electoral edge.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the VRA
in _Shelby County v. Holder_ [[link removed]],
which eviscerated a key section of the law that required jurisdictions
with a history of racist disenfranchisement to obtain federal approval
prior to altering voting rules. In 2021, the nation's high court voted
5-4 in _Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee_ 
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restrictions—even as Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged
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they disproportionately affect minorities.

Now, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority is poised to "end
voting rights as we know them," as _Mother Jones_ reporter Pema
Levy put it
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That's because the justices said last week that they would rehear a
case that could result in them striking down Section 2 of the VRA,
what University of California, Los Angeles legal scholar Richard L.
Hasen calls
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last remaining pillar" of the law.

"Instead of anniversary toasts, election law experts are preparing
eulogies for the landmark legislation, which conservative lawyers have
attacked on multiple fronts in recent years, after the U.S. Supreme
Court took square aim at the statute's constitutionality last week,"
Jim Saksa wrote
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for _Democracy Docket_.

As Hasen explained:

_Louisiana v. Callais,
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case that was the subject of last Friday's order, is a voting case
over the drawing of the state's six congressional districts. Louisiana
has a one-third Black population, but after the 2020 census the state
Legislature drew a districting plan, passed over a Democratic
governor's veto, that created only one district in which Black voters
would be likely to elect their candidate of choice.

Before _Callais_, Black voters had successfully sued Louisiana in a
case called _Robinson v. Ardoin
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arguing that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required drawing a
second congressional district giving Black voters that opportunity.
Section 2 says minority voters should have the same chance as other
voters to elect their candidates of choice, and courts have long used
it to require new districts when there is a large and cohesive
minority population concentrated in a given area, when white and
minority voters choose different candidates, and when the minority has
difficulty electing its preferred representatives.

However, a group of non-Black voters argued in a lawsuit that the
consideration of race in creating a second minority-majority district
violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause and the 15th
Amendment's ban on federal and state governments denying citizens the
right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of
servitude."

"To me, this is it," Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, a law professor at Indiana
University Bloomington, told _Democracy Docket_. "I would bet my left
arm that they will tell us that Section 2 is in violation of the 15th
Amendment."

Civil rights defenders including numerous Democratic lawmakers urged
Congress to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
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legislation first introduced in 2021 whose sponsors said will "update
and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."

"Sixty years ago today, the Voting Rights Act became law thanks to the
perseverance of civil rights activists. Today, our sacred right to
vote remains under attack," Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), one of the
bill's primary sponsors, said
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social media Wednesday. "We must protect our democracy and honor those
who risked everything by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights
Advancement Act."

Although the bill passed
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then-Democrat controlled House of Representatives in 2021, it failed
to pass the Senate and a subsequent bid to advance the legislation
failed the following year.

Calling for passage of the bill, Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.)—whose
home state played a critical role in the civil rights struggle—said
on the social media site Bluesky that the VRA "is on life support
after being gutted by the Supreme Court and far-right judges."

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said
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Bluesky that "60 years ago today, the Voting Rights Act became law.
Now, we have an administration conducting voter suppression
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Texas, Republicans are trying to gut our democracy
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redrawing maps to erase five Democratic seats—before a single vote
is cast."

"The fight continues," Crockett added. "We owe it to those who
marched, bled, and believed to keep pushing until every voice is heard
and every vote counts."

The ACLU said [[link removed]]:
"Democracy can't wait. Congress must protect our voting rights at the
federal level by passing the reintroduced John Lewis Voting Rights
Advancement Act."

However, passing the bill will be next to impossible, given Republican
control of both houses of Congress and President Donald Trump
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That doesn't mean voting rights defenders should give up, Legal
Defense Fund president and director-counsel Janai Nelson stressed
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"If we are to continue the pursuit of the multiracial democracy that
the VRA set in motion 60 years ago and if we are to honor our
republican form of government founded on representation by the people,
we must be unwavering in our commitment to fulfill the promise
of Selma [[link removed]], refuse to cede any
further ground, and mobilize in support of equal voting rights and
fair elections," Nelson said.

_Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* US Supreme Court; Voting Rights Act of 1965;
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* right wing attacks
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