Hi, this is Dahlia Lithwick, and I'm popping up in this off-week for Amicus to tell you

about a conversation I had recently that I think is a really worthwhile follow-on from

the conversation we had last week about the big voting rights cases at the court.

And as part of this year's South by Southwest Festival, which is going on right now, I got

a chance to speak to Senator Jeff Murkley of Oregon about voting about big money, dark

money, and about the filibuster.

The conversation comes as Senator Murkley and some of his colleagues in the Senate introduced

S1 this week, it's known as HR1 in the House, more broadly for the People Act.

Our Slate Plus members have access to that full interview from South by Southwest.

Here's just a snippet.

Hi, and welcome to South by Southwest.

And today's urgently needed discussion with Senator Jeff Murkley from Oregon on democracy

reform and voting rights and the For the People Act, which is a comprehensive Senate package

aimed at bolstering basic ideas of one person, one vote, and constitutional democracy.

My name is Dahlia Lithwick, I cover the courts and the Supreme Court and the law for Slate,

and I host the podcast, Amicus, and I'm so delighted to be in conversation today with

Senator Murkley on this issue.

So I think I'm just going to start by saying that we're here to try to connect to kind of

attenuated ideas, that despite Joe Biden's victory in inauguration, democracy has by no

means triumphed over impulses of authoritarianism, and that we need structural reform to bolster

the kind of slightly rickety infrastructure we have now.

And so I think I want to start just saying there's nobody I'd rather talk to about this

...