The Death of the Voting Rights Act
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais ran contrary to the Voting Rights Act—both as written by Congress and as previously interpreted by the Supreme Court.
Guest: Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Usually, when the Supreme Court's got a big decision to announce, a legal earthquake, they've got this routine. |
| 0:14.6 | They wait until they're about to go on summer vacation, and then they let it rip. |
| 0:22.8 | But yesterday, they tried something different. |
| 0:26.7 | Breaking news, the Supreme Court has ruled to limit the Voting Rights Act. |
| 0:30.6 | My next guest called today's ruling, quote, a devastating blow to the promise of equal |
| 0:35.1 | representation in our democracy. |
| 0:37.7 | I will say that getting the V rights case today was a little bit of a surprise. |
| 0:43.5 | Jay Willis from over at Balls and Strikes, he was still shaking off some of the shock when I got him on the line. |
| 0:50.2 | When the decision came out, you posted just a few words about it on social media. |
| 0:55.3 | They were analysis. |
| 0:57.6 | Son of a bitch. |
| 0:59.2 | You know, people come to me for the hard-hitting stuff. |
| 1:03.2 | I mean, Slate's Marches of Stern summed up this case a few months back by saying the Supreme Court was considering whether it is racist to remedy racism. |
| 1:13.5 | Is that what the court has said here, that essentially it's racist to see race and try to |
| 1:18.8 | fix a racist district? |
| 1:22.3 | Well, it's racist to consider race. |
| 1:24.5 | It's racist to say race out loud. |
| 1:26.9 | Quite the little finger trap there. Yeah. |
| 1:29.6 | The case that got decided here was Louisiana v. Calais. It's about the V. Rights Act. That law was |
| 1:36.0 | intended to protect the voting power of minorities. For years, there was a provision known as Section |
| 1:41.7 | 5 that required some states to seek federal |
| 1:44.1 | permission before changing election laws, for instance. The Supreme Court rolled that back |
... |
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