Why Conservatives Are Trying to Kill the Voting Rights Act
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 218 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More To The Story: The Voting Rights Act is widely considered one of the most effective laws in prohibiting racial discrimination in voting. One of its key provisions has long allowed states to take race into account when drawing voting maps to ensure that nonwhite voters have electoral power. But earlier this year, the Supreme Court narrowed that provision. In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan described the court’s decision as the “now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” “The notion that everyone deserves equal access to the ballot, that everyone deserves equal access to elections, that one person ought to mean one vote, and that there ought to be some measure of political equality has never really sat well with the political right in this country,” says Jamelle Bouie, a political columnist for the New York Times. On this week’s More To The Story, Bouie and host Al Letson talk about how the Voting Rights Act has been defanged by the Supreme Court, why the Democratic Party is made up of “a bunch of weenies,” and why he believes the country is experiencing a constitutional emergency.
This is an update of an episode that originally aired in August 2025.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Digital producer: Artis Curiskis | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
Listen: How Trump Exploits Working-Class Pain (More To The Story)
Read: Republican Gerrymandering Schemes Target Minority Voters and Their Representatives (Mother Jones)
Listen: Not All Votes Are Created Equal (Reveal)
Read: The Nation’s Landmark Voting Rights Law Just Turned 60. It May Not Survive Trump. (Mother Jones)
Watch: Blame John Roberts for Destroying the Voting Rights Act (Mother Jones)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The conservative movement has never liked the Voting Rights Act. |
| 0:05.0 | It's never like the idea of a federal government exercising its authority in strong ways to curb states from shaping their electorates and shaping their elections. |
| 0:16.0 | Coming up on more to the story, New York Times history and political columnist Jamel Bowie on the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and why he believes America is in a constitutional emergency. Stay with us. |
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| 1:52.8 | This is more to the story. I'm Al Ledson. The Voting Rights Act was signed into law in August |
| 2:00.3 | 1965, abolishing poll taxes |
| 2:03.1 | and expanding the right to vote for black Americans. By the end of the year, a quarter of a million |
| 2:09.0 | new black voters registered in the U.S. And by the end of the following year, most southern |
| 2:14.2 | states had registered a majority of its black residents to vote. |
| 2:18.3 | One of the key provisions of the law allowed states to take race into account when drawing up |
| 2:24.0 | electoral maps. It was meant to ensure that non-white voters had the power to elect candidates |
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