Show Host / Narrator (6:17)
now. A president with this level of unpopularity is simply not tenable for a political party anytime, and certainly not six months out from the midterm elections. But rather than change policies in an attempt to become more popular with voters, you know, building support among the people you're trying to get to vote for you, it appears the Republican plan, and they're not new to this plan, I should just note, is to make the country less Democratic so that the opinions of the voters matter less, so that fewer people have their voices heard. And today, the conservative justices on the Supreme Court made that plan a whole lot easier. Because Today, in a 6, 3 decision along partisan lines, the court gutted a key Provision of the 1965 Voting Rights act, making it easier for Republicans to gerrymander congressional maps in ways that could disenfranchise black voters. And I just wanna take a moment to tell the story of the map at the center of the case, Louisiana's congressional map, because I think it really helps show just the impact of today's ruling. What this is really all about. The 2020 census found that about 1/3 of the population of Louisiana was black. But when the largely white Republican majority in the Louisiana state legislature used that data to make new congressional maps, guess what they drew? Five majority white districts and just one majority black district. So even though black voters made up one third of the population in the state, they were likely only able to elect one sixth of its representatives. Now, black voters in Louisiana sued over that map they should have, and they won. A federal court ordered Louisiana to draw a new map with two majority black districts. But then a group of white voters countersued, saying that the new map, one that gave the state's 1/3 black population 1/3 of the congressional seats, was actually discriminatory against them. And today, conservatives on the Supreme Court agreed with that logic, deciding against history and legal precedent that the map was an illegal gerrymander. But of course, like all Supreme Court cases, this decision was not just about the case before the court. It was not just about Louisiana at all. Now, because of this ruling, if voters want to sue arguing that their congressional map discriminates against them because of their race, they have to prove not just that the impact of the map is discriminatory, but that the people who drew the map intended to discriminate against them because of their race. So in the case of Louisiana, that would mean you couldn't just show how the map clearly diluted the power of black voters, 1/3 of the state, giving them one less representative than they should have. You would have to somehow prove that the lawmakers who drew that map did it with racist intent. And that is nearly impossible to do. And I say that not because it sounds hard in the abstract, but because, well, we have been here before today. In her dissent, Justice Kagan explained why relying on intent has never been enough and how situations, just like what Republicans did with their maps in Louisiana are why Congress passed the Voting Rights act to begin with. Here's part of what she said. In the wake of the Civil War, Congress enacted and the states ratified the 15th amendment to ensure the enfranchisement of black Americans. But in the century that followed, the 15th Amendment proved little more than a parchment promise. Violence and intimidation were ever present ways to deny black citizens their right to vote. But often force was not needed because state laws could well enough accomplish that goal, especially in the South. States soon put in place a host of facially race neutral devices to systematically disenfranchise African American citizens. Poll taxes, literacy tests, good character exams, property qualifications, convoluted registration processes. By the way, we're seeing that again today. All These and more, when combined with administrative discretion, effectively suppress the black vote without much affecting the white one. Louisiana's post Reconstruction rules, to cite the most pertinent example, took less than a decade to drive the number of black registered voters from 130,000 to just over 1,300. That's why Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. Supposedly race neutral tricks like Louisiana getting rid of a black district through partisan gerrymandering, those are the exact kind of tricks lawmakers had in mind when they passed the VRA into law. And when it's been renewed over and over again. And the law worked, it increased black representation in our government, immediately made our country more of a true democracy. But the Supreme Court's ruling today could undo so much of that progress. This is the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in Congress in the American south today. You can see the map right on your screen. Obviously red, Republican, blue, Democrats, where black voters predominantly vote for Democrats and where Democrats have 24 of those House seats. The New York Times predicts that Democrats could eventually, over time, lose around half of those seats because of today's Supreme Court ruling. And as dark as that is, I think it's also a call to action. The Voting Rights act wasn't just passed by Congress because it was the right thing to do. Civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Had spent years, years laying the groundwork for the law, getting arrested for registering voters, getting beaten and even killed for having the audacity to demand what the 15th amendment was supposed to guarantee them. As Justice Kagan put it in her dissent today, it was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. That's what we're talking about right now. So tonight I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to hear from more. I wanted to talk to more. And you may have seen some of what he had to already say about this than the pastor who now preaches at the same pulpit once held by Martin Luther King Jr. Joining me now is Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. He's of course also the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. It's great to see you. I saw we've already said on this today, which is incredibly powerful for people watching tonight, wondering, and I think a lot of people are wondering, maybe they're coming home from work, they're tuning in broadly what the impact of this is and in practical terms too, what do you tell them?
