Supreme Court deals another blow to Voting Rights Act
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: voting correspondents Miles Parks and Hansi Lo Wang and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. |
| 0:08.4 | I'm Hansi Luong. I also cover voting. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. |
| 0:14.2 | Today on the show, a landmark Supreme Court ruling out today that all but guts the Voting Rights Act. |
| 0:19.7 | It could have a huge impact on black |
| 0:21.7 | representation. Hansi, you've been following this case closely. Explain what the court ruled today. |
| 0:28.0 | Well, this is a ruling by the Supreme Court's conservative majority, and it weakens the Voting |
| 0:33.2 | Rights Act's protections against racial discrimination in redistricting. And the ruling comes out of specifically |
| 0:39.3 | a case about Louisiana's congressional map. But it's important to point out this will affect |
| 0:44.4 | redistricting around the country at all levels of government. You know, what the court ruled today, |
| 0:50.3 | specifically, was that the second majority black congressional district that a lower federal court |
| 0:55.8 | had ordered Louisiana's legislature to draw to get in line with the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme |
| 1:00.6 | Court ruled that that was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. And this was a decision that fell |
| 1:07.4 | along ideological lines. The court's six conservative justices joined the majority |
| 1:11.7 | opinion written by Justice Samuel Lido, and the court's three liberals dissented. |
| 1:16.3 | Okay, well, Hansi, can you walk us through a little bit of the background in terms of how this |
| 1:20.3 | case arrived at the Supreme Court and the actual question that was being brought to SCOTUS? |
| 1:24.8 | There's a very complicated backstory, but I'll try to break this down. |
| 1:28.4 | The 2020 census results came out, and they showed Louisiana had become a state where nearly |
| 1:33.2 | one and three people are black. And using those results, Louisiana's Republican-controlled |
| 1:38.4 | legislature redrew the state's congressional map, and they drew only one majority black district. In other words, |
| 1:45.4 | there was only one district out of six where black voters had a realistic opportunity to select |
| 1:51.4 | their preferred candidate in a state where voting is racially polarized between a Republican |
... |
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