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Defending Democracy with Marc Elias

The Supreme Court Just Declared War on Voting Rights. Here's How We Fight Back | Expert Panel

Defending Democracy with Marc Elias

Democracy Docket

News, Politics

4.9702 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2026

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Supreme Court just gutted the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, delivering what Marc Elias calls the worst voting rights ruling in modern memory. The fight isn't over — but no new law can undo what the court just did. So what comes next, and how do we actually push back?
In this Democracy Docket panel, Marc Elias is joined by Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Leah Litman, University of Michigan law professor and co-host of Strict Scrutiny; and Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Together they break down the Callais ruling, the Supreme Court's pattern of dismantling voting rights, the threat to Black and Latino representation in Congress, and the real reforms that could turn this around.

Transcript

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0:00.0

So we have three experts on constitutional law,

0:04.2

three experts on the Supreme Court,

0:05.8

three experts on the attacks we are facing

0:11.0

as the court is doing its business this term.

0:14.3

And I wanna kick this off, Damon,

0:16.1

with a question to you.

0:17.3

We just witnessed the Supreme Court issue its decision in the Kaleigh case,

0:24.8

Louisiana versus Kaleigh. This is, in my estimation, the worst voting case in recent memory,

0:33.3

I mean in modern time, you know, you can go back. I think it's worse than Shelby County. It doesn't

0:37.3

even to be getting the attention of Shelby County, but I think it's worse in Shelby County.

0:40.3

And so, you know, as someone who leads the premier lawyers, civil rights organization and legal organization, give me your perspective on what the court did and as importantly, like where you think

0:57.3

we are going from here. Great to be with you, wish it was better circumstances. Mark, you're right.

1:02.8

This is the worst voting rights case, certainly of the modern era. You have covered in democracy

1:09.7

docket in your audience knows a lot of the details, but

1:13.4

short stories that the court has gutted the rest of Section 2, the right, there was a prior

1:19.5

gutting, of course, the case that you had Bernovich v. DNC, also a majority opinion by

1:25.1

Justice Alito. That was a sleeping, I won't say John is sleeping something

1:31.0

at the time, but now its impact is more profound where he talked about the usual burdens of voting.

1:37.2

Now those burdens are very great and grave in terms of time, place, manner restrictions that we

1:42.1

struggle to address through litigation. So in this case, the court

1:44.9

has got it the rest of Section 2 moving from vote denial challenges to vote dilution. And it's

1:50.8

essentially told us, it's essentially ratcheted up the standard. You can think of the section 2

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