What’s Next for Voting Rights, and Why Activism Matters (w/ Jane Fonda)
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Stacey opens the show by answering audience questions about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the Voting Rights Act, and what it means for our democracy. Then she’s joined by Jane Fonda, who explains why she’s revived the Committee for the First Amendment, a group originally supported by her father in the 1940’s. Stacey and Jane also talk about the Trump administration’s attacks against Jimmy Kimmel, why the Warner Bros. and Paramount merger is so dangerous, and what Jane has learned after decades of activism, including her actions during the Vietnam War.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast, episode title, and episode date.
Learn & Do More
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Be Curious: To learn more about Jane Fonda’s extraordinary history of art and activism, check out the documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts from HBO. - Solve Problems: You can get involved in the fight against the consequences of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the Voting Rights Act. Check out the Louisiana-based organization Power Coalition for Equity and Justice at powercoalition.org to learn about volunteer opportunities. The organization Civic Tennessee at https://www.mobilize.us/civictn/ also has volunteer opportunities available.
Do Good: The ACLU continues to be a powerful resource in their fight for Free Speech. Visit ACLU.org and check out their campaigns in support of free speech and expression.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Cricket Media. |
| 0:11.3 | I'm your host, Stacey Abrams. |
| 0:13.5 | This week, I am thrilled to be joined by the inimitable actor and activist Jane Fonda. |
| 0:19.9 | We'll talk about her history of bold political advocacy, |
| 0:23.6 | her brilliant career, and why she relaunched the McCarthy-era organization Committee for the |
| 0:30.1 | First Amendment, which counted her father, Henry Fonda, as one of its original members. |
| 0:35.4 | But first, I want to take a moment to discuss the Supreme Court's recent ruling impacting |
| 0:41.1 | voting rights across the country. |
| 0:43.0 | And a decision you're probably hearing about called the Calais decision, the Supreme Court |
| 0:47.7 | reversed 60 years of progress. |
| 0:50.6 | And what they said is that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which required that states actually |
| 0:57.2 | draw districts that reflected the racial composition of their states that they no longer have to do it. |
| 1:03.0 | Just as Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, and basically he said that rather than detecting |
| 1:09.0 | what has happened with racial intent, you now have to be a psychic |
| 1:13.0 | and know what they meant. But he also said that in states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, |
| 1:19.9 | Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Florida, that no longer will those states with significant populations |
| 1:26.6 | of color be required to actually |
| 1:29.3 | ensure that those voters have the ability to elect representation that reflects their needs. |
| 1:36.3 | That's a problem because the Voting Rights Act is what worked to make democracy possible for millions of Americans. And so now I want to answer some |
| 1:45.9 | questions from you about what happened and what it means. So I'm going to start with two |
| 1:51.7 | questions from our Discord channel. The first is from Amber B. She writes, I live in Alabama and |
| 1:57.2 | I was involved with redistricting in 2021 at the state, county, and local levels. |
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