An Elegy for the Voting Rights Act
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2021
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A Supreme Court brain trust gathers for this year’s Amicus Breakfast Table. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Melissa Murray, professor at NYU School of Law and co-host of the podcast Strict Scrutiny; Jeffrey Fisher, Stanford Law School professor and co-director of Stanford’s Supreme Court Litigation clinic; Perry Grossman*, senior staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project; and of course, Slate’s own Mark Joseph Stern. Together, they analyze the shape of the court and the ramification of its decisions at the end of the 2020 term.
*Perry Grossman appeared on this podcast in a personal capacity, and views expressed do not necessarily represent the NYCLU.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, and welcome back to Amicus. This is Slate's podcast about the courts, the Supreme Court, the rule of law. And you have now just stumbled into our annual end-of-term breakfast table. That's right, sports fans. This time, last year, the 2019 term had been extended because of COVID. Ruth Vader-Ginsberg was anchoring the left wing of this kind of 4-4-1 court. |
| 0:23.3 | Chief Justice John Roberts was the fulcrum. |
| 0:26.2 | President Donald Trump was trying to dodge a New York investigation into his finances |
| 0:31.0 | and starting to set up claims that the election would all be stolen. |
| 0:35.9 | Here we are a year later. |
| 0:38.6 | The justices are still doing their public sessions telephonically, but for sure they are not phoning it in. The 2020 |
| 0:44.4 | term closed Thursday on a year in which Justice Ginsburg was replaced by Justice Barrett. |
| 0:51.2 | Everyone warned they were going to take your health care away. Nobody took your |
| 0:55.0 | health care away. The court stayed out of a contentious 2020 presidential election. And they surprised a lot of |
| 1:02.1 | people by not showing up in six three jerseys all year. But then the six three jerseys were |
| 1:09.7 | pulled on Thursday morning with a pair of very contentious. |
| 1:13.6 | Cases that I think raise existential questions about two issues that now seem to mean everything in America. |
| 1:20.4 | Big money, the vote. |
| 1:22.4 | Now, the justices sail off into the summer. |
| 1:25.9 | No retirements announced as President Biden tries to govern a country that is not entirely persuaded that he won the election. |
| 1:36.1 | And with news on Thursday that the Trump organization was indicted by a New York grand jury, along with its chief financial officer, on 15 felony counts. |
| 1:47.5 | Ladies and gentlemen, what a difference a year makes. |
| 1:53.2 | For our Slate Plus listeners, we have got such a packed show coming up for you with tons and tons of input from our cherished Mark Joseph |
| 2:02.7 | Stern. So there is no Slate Plus segment this week. But the Amicus Plus segment will be back |
| 2:09.6 | in all its glory this fall as we look ahead to the 2021 term. Remember, Slate Plus members get |
| 2:16.3 | access to add free content from all of Slate's shows, |
| 2:19.9 | never hit a paywall on the website, and enjoy bonus segments from this show and a host of |
... |
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