Why Conservatives Are Trying to Kill the Voting Rights Act
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More To The Story: The Voting Rights Act turned 60 years old this month. The landmark piece of legislation is considered one of the most effective laws protecting the right to vote for racial minorities around the country. But the conservative movement has successfully hollowed out much of the law, thanks to Supreme Court decisions over the last decade. On this week’s episode, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie sits down with host Al Letson to 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 now in a constitutional emergency.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Copy editor: Nikki Frick | Deputy executive producer: Taki Telonidis | Executive producer: Brett Myers | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
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- 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)
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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| 1:37.4 | Thank you. This is more to the story. |
| 1:50.7 | I'm Al Leadsen. |
| 1:52.0 | The right to vote and be represented fairly in Congress has been challenged and fought over since America's founding. |
| 1:58.5 | And that battle over who gets to participate in democracy |
| 2:01.8 | and hold power is playing out around the U.S. today. In Texas, Republicans are attempting |
| 2:07.7 | to redraw legislative maps that would give their party as many as five new seats in the |
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