Is voting doomed?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Today, Explained – "Is voting doomed?"

Date: October 15, 2025
Hosts: Noel King, Sean Rameswaram (not present in transcript)
Guests: Mark Joseph Stern (Slate), Ian Millhiser (Vox)

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Overview of the Episode

This episode centers on a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court case—Calais v. Louisiana—that challenges the remaining core of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), a landmark civil rights law that has protected minority access to voting for decades. The hosts and guests unpack the legal arguments, historical context, potential implications of the Court's decision, and reflect on both partisan and structural dimensions of voting rights in America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Case: Calais v. Louisiana

• Background: Louisiana redrew its congressional districts, increasing majority-Black districts from one to two in compliance with the VRA.
  • [02:16] Stern: “This case is Calais versus Louisiana, which is a challenge to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, a seminal 1965 law designed to protect and enhance minority participation in elections.”
• Plaintiffs (Calais and others): White voters argue the new map gives Black voters "too much power" and that the VRA’s focus on race violates the Constitution.
  • [04:18] Stern: “The plaintiffs here say, look, taking race into account that way, using race to decide whether a law or a map is constitutional, that actually violates the equal protection clause.”

2. Changing Positions and State Action

• The Louisiana legislature initially defended its map, but later reversed course, effectively siding with those challenging the VRA.
  • [05:32] Stern: "The attorney general, the solicitor general, the state legislature, the governor, all of them have now decided that in fact they deserve to be sued and that the map they drew is unlawful."

3. The Supreme Court’s Recent History with the VRA

• Allen v. Milligan (2023): The Court upheld the VRA and race-based districting as a remedy for discrimination.
  • [06:15] Stern: “It was only in 2023, in a decision called Allen v. Milligan, that the Supreme Court upheld… yes, the Voting Rights Act does require states to ensure that minority voters have fair and equal representation.”
• Current Threat: Despite Allen, the current case threatens to end the use of race-based remedies in districting.
  • [07:25] Stern: “…here we are barely two years later, and the Supreme Court is doing exactly that. It is entertaining what is very much an existential threat to the foundation of the Voting Rights Act.”

4. The Stakes: What Happens If the VRA Is Gutted?

• Core issue: If race can’t be taken into account to fight racist districting, legislatures could redraw maps to dilute minority power with no VRA to challenge them.
  • [09:07] Stern: “The court would be saying, you cannot fight racism by taking race into account…you have to pretend to be colorblind.”
• Scope: The impact would be national, not just in Louisiana.
  • [10:29] Stern: “There are many, many maps drawn in states all across the country that were designed to comply with the Voting Rights act... If the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights act, then it will be open season on these black communities and brown communities…”
• Partisan Dimension: Black Americans, who vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, would lose representation, potentially shifting as many as 19 House seats.
  • [11:42] Stern: “…if the law is gutted or overturned…Democrats could lose as many as 19 seats in the House of Representatives…”

5. Longstanding Skepticism and Partisan Implications

• John Roberts: Has a history of opposition to broad interpretations of the VRA, dating to his time in the Reagan administration and his 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision.
  • [07:50] Stern: “…John Roberts, when he worked in Ronald Reagan’s Department of Justice, lobbied against an expansion of the Voting Rights act quite vigorously.”
• Arguments Against the VRA: Conservative justices claim America is less racist than during Jim Crow, so VRA protections are no longer necessary. Critics call this view naïve and historically dangerous.
  • [22:15] Millhiser: “They argue … that the United States is less racist now than it was in 1960…so we no longer need these protections…”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On what’s at stake in plain language:
  • [09:07] Mark Joseph Stern: “The court would be saying, you cannot fight racism by taking race into account.”
• Explaining why the Supreme Court’s majority is reconsidering the VRA so quickly after upholding it:
  • [07:50] Mark Joseph Stern: “It does seem to me that the decision two years ago was always on kind of shaky ground because it was a 5 to 4 ruling...”
• On the transformation of the Voting Rights Act debate:
  • [15:55] Ian Millhiser: “The premise of the Voting Rights act is that it comes out of the Jim Crow era when there was states who were engaged in a terrible evil. …And now the problem is that the federal government is the wrongdoers. I do not trust Donald Trump with power…”
• On whether federal protections are still needed:
  • [22:15] Ian Millhiser: “…the United States is less racist now than it was in 1960…so we no longer need these protections because America doesn’t have the same race problems.”
  • [23:43] Ian Millhiser: “And now that we know what happened to black Americans after that decision, my God, was the Supreme Court wrong about that.”
• On the new relevance of ‘federalism’:
  • [24:55] Ian Millhiser: “You know, federalism, the idea that we should devolve power to the states is not something that…people on my political side…have historically been very favorable to…But it is also the case…states generally draw the electoral maps in the US and that means that blue states can counter Republican gerrymanders.”

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Important Timestamps and Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | Speaker(s) | |--------------|----------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------| | 00:03-00:46 | VRA introduction & popularity | Noel King, Mark Joseph Stern | | 02:02-06:01 | Calais v. Louisiana: facts, arguments, flip-flop | Noel King, Mark Joseph Stern | | 06:01-07:25 | Supreme Court's recent (Allen v. Milligan) ruling | Mark Joseph Stern | | 07:35-08:57 | Why the Supreme Court is revisiting the VRA | Noel King, Mark Joseph Stern | | 09:07-11:18 | Implications of gutting the VRA | Noel King, Mark Joseph Stern | | 11:42-12:43 | Partisan consequences of weakening the VRA | Noel King, Mark Joseph Stern | | 15:40-17:16 | Federal power: from hero to potential threat | Mark Joseph Stern, Ian Millhiser| | 17:33-21:56 | Legal & historical context (Shelby, Roberts, etc.) | Noel King, Ian Millhiser | | 22:15-23:43 | Conservative justices’ arguments against the VRA | Ian Millhiser | | 24:47-26:05 | Millhiser on federalism as a defensive strategy | Noel King, Ian Millhiser |

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Episode Tone & Style

The tone is concerned and analytical, mixing historical context, legal expertise, and current political urgency. Both guests, especially Stern and Millhiser, are passionate about the implications of the case—Millhiser reluctantly entertains arguments against the VRA while warning of their risks, and Stern sounds alarmed about the shaky future of voting rights protections.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

"Is voting doomed?" breaks down a Supreme Court challenge that could upend a half-century of minority voting rights protections. Experts explain how this case—driven by claims of reverse racial discrimination—could eliminate the ability to use race as a remedy for racist gerrymandering, potentially letting conservative legislatures across the country further marginalize Black (predominantly Democratic) voters. The conversation traverses legal arguments, historical mistakes, present partisanship, and the uneasy potential of relying on states' rights to safeguard democracy in a new, fractious era. For anyone concerned about the future of American elections, the episode underscores that what happens in this Supreme Court term could reshape voting—and representation—for millions.

Transcript

[Noel King]

The 1965 Voting Rights act enfranchised millions of black voters in the Jim Crow south. And to this day, polling shows it is one of the country's most popular laws. Americans tend to like democracy, but a challenge out of Louisiana has the Supreme Court's nine justices considering today whether to gut the vra. And you know what? They might.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

The Supreme Court has seen that there just isn't that much backlash to its decisions, at least not the kind of backlog that threatens the court's power. You know, the Supreme Court has now overturned the right to abortion. It has overturned affirmative action. It has overturned a number of environmental policies and other pretty popular laws. And you know, it still stands.

[Noel King]

That's ahead on Today Explained.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

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[Noel King]

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[Ian Millhiser]

Oh yay. Oh yay.

[Noel King]

Oh yay.

[Ian Millhiser]

Oh yay.

[Noel King]

It's today Explained from Vox. I'm Noel King. Mark Joseph Stern is a senior writer for Slate. He covers courts and the law, and he co hosts Amicus. It's a podcast. All right, so, Mark, the Supreme Court is hearing this big, fascinating case today. What is it?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

This case is Calais versus Louisiana, which is a challenge to what remains of the Voting Rights act, a seminal 1965 law designed to protect and enhance minority participation in elections.

[Supreme Court Justice / Historical Voice]

Millions of Americans are denied the right to vote because of their color. This law will ensure them the right to vote.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

So Calais is one of a group of plaintiffs who are white who are challenging a map drawn by the Louisiana legislature designed to increase representation Black residents.

[Ian Millhiser]

And may it please the court, Louisiana would rather not be here.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

A few years ago, a district court struck down a map that only included one congressional district with a majority black population.

[Ian Millhiser]

We didn't want to be in the Emergency docket. In 2022.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

The legislature responded by drawing a new map with a second congressional district featuring majority black population. And that prompted these white voters to come in and essentially argue that this new map, with its 2 majority black district, gave black residents too much political power at the expense of white residents, and that by doing so, under the voting rights act, they had violated the constitution.

[Ian Millhiser]

And today, I mean, God bless my friends on both sides of this case.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

But we'd rather not be caught between.

[Ian Millhiser]

Two parties with diametrically opposed visions of.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

What our congressional map should look like.

[Ian Millhiser]

But this has become life as usual for the states under this court's voting cases.

[Noel King]

Two majority black districts out of how many in the state?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

Six.

[Noel King]

Okay, two out of six. It sounds to me like it would be hard to make the case that two out of six districts that are majority black are giving black voters too much power. But it's at the supreme court. So somebody has made a convincing argument. What is the argument that calais is making and what's been convincing about it?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

So calais is arguing that the voting rights act, as currently interpreted, is unconstitutional because it takes race into account too much and requires courts and legislatures to use race heavily in redistricting. The whole point of the voting rights act is to increase participation in democracy by voters of color. And one way to do that is to ensure that they are able to elect representatives of their choice. And it's really impossible to protect the voting power of minority voters without considering their race, without ensuring that a map represents them, that they are participating equally in democracy. But the plaintiffs here say, look, taking race into account that way, using race to decide whether a law or a map is constitutional, that actually violates the equal protection clause, and so it cannot stand under our constitution.

[Noel King]

Who's on the other end of Calais? Who's the. Who's on the other end of the V? And are they essentially making the argument that you just laid out?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

So it's. It's really interesting. Um, initially, the state legislature defended its map.

[Noel King]

Super majority of our legislature adopted this map. And our job is to then defend that act of the legislature. And that's what we were here to do today.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

But then the legislature changed its mind, and it flipped its position. And the legislature essentially sided with the plaintiffs and said, we now think that this map is unconstitutional and that the voting rights act itself requires states to violate the constitution. So even though Louisiana is being sued, the attorney general, the solicitor General, the state legislature, the governor, all of them have now decided that in fact they deserve to be sued and that the map that they drew is unlawful.

[Noel King]

Fascinating. And now we go before the Supreme Court and let's pull back, actually, and get above the state of Louisiana. Didn't the Supreme Court uphold the Voting Rights act in a different case just a couple of years back?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

Yes. So it was only in 2023, in a decision called Allen v. Milligan, that the Supreme Court upheld.

[Supreme Court Justice / Historical Voice]

For nearly 40 years, we have authorized race based redistricting as a remedy for state districting maps that have a discriminatory effect under section 2. We continue that understanding today.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

The Supreme Court said, yes, the Voting Rights act does require states to ensure that minority voters have fair and equal representation. Yes, that does sometimes require courts and legislatures to take race into account.

[Supreme Court Justice / Historical Voice]

That section prohibits states from implementing voting rules or practices that have the effect of abridging a person's right to vote based on their race.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

But that is completely fine under the Constitution. It is not a violation of the Equal protection clause and it's not a violation of the 15th Amendment, which bars discrimination on the basis of race in voting. The Supreme Court was pretty clear that this was a long standing law that had been applied in much the same way for decades.

[Supreme Court Justice / Historical Voice]

The jingles framework we have used for Almost the past 40 years reflects that understanding of equally open, and we continue to adhere to that understanding today.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

And yet here we are barely two years later, and the Supreme Court is doing exactly that. It is entertaining what is very much an existential threat to the foundation of the Voting Rights Act.

[Noel King]

A thinking woman such as myself might say, you guys, Supreme Court, the nine justices, you just did this. You handed down a ruling. It's good. It's been 24 or so months. Why are you doing this again? Why are they doing this again?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

So, I mean, it's a good question. I think it's a question more for a psychoanalyst than a legal journalist, because I can't peer into their skulls, but, you know, it does souls to me. Yes, their skulls or their souls. It does seem to me that the decision two years ago was always on kind of shaky ground because it was a 5 to 4 ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the majority, but they have long been separated, skeptical of the Voting Rights Act. And John Roberts, when he worked in Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice, lobbied against an expansion of the Voting Rights act quite vigorously. He also wrote a 2013 decision that struck down a different part of the Voting Rights Act. And so I think it was clear at the time that, yes, this was a victory for the vra. It maybe was also a stay of execution. Even though the majority said, we're standing by the vra, it was still a threadbare majority doing so with two justices who really, over the long term, didn't have a lot of love for this statute.

[Noel King]

If the court were to rule against the vra, what would it be saying? In the simplest possible language, you can no longer do what or you must do what?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

The court would be saying, you cannot fight racism by taking race into account. I think that's the simplest way to put it. The court would be saying, you cannot, as a state legislature or as a federal court, use race to decide whether a certain congressional map or congressional district is drawn in a way to dilute or diminish the influence of black voters. And you also can't use race then to try to create a new map or a new district that increases representation in political power for black voters. That the court would be saying, you have to pretend to be colorblind. You have to pretend as though you can't see race. You aren't thinking about race. Even though we all know that the Louisiana state legislature has long used race to draw districts that, until a recent decision, it was pretty aggressively diluting the political power of black residents by taking their race into account, the Supreme Court would be saying, well, too bad the Constitution requires colorblindness. And so even if there is racism afoot, we are not going to allow state legislatures or lower courts to then use race to try to remedy that problem.

[Noel King]

So if the Supreme Court decides to get rid of the Voting Rights act or to gut the Voting Rights act, what are the implications? And are they just for Louisiana?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

No. So there are many, many maps drawn in states all across the country that were designed to comply with the Voting Rights act by ensuring that voters of color have sufficient and equal representation, that they have equal access to democracy into the electoral process in the terms of the law. If the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights act, then it will be open season on these black communities and brown communities, state legislatures in places like not just Louisiana, but also Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, they will be able to go back and draw even more racist maps that even more aggressively dilutes the voting power of communities of color and not have to worry about a Voting Rights act challenge, because the Voting Rights act will be essentially dismantled.

[Noel King]

And the reason that all of this. Well, this matters for many reasons, but one main reason this all matters I am assuming is because black Americans tend to vote for Democrats and not for Republicans. And so this becomes partisan because if you're diluting black districts, you are likely to have fewer districts voting for Democrats. Is that right?

[Mark Joseph Stern]

Yes, that is correct. The Voting Rights act was not designed to be a partisan law, and it has long enjoyed bipartisan support. But the reality is that in this country, black voters overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. And so this law has functioned as a kind of, maybe you could say a safety net for the Democratic Party insofar as it prevents states from aggressively gerrymandering black communities out of any kind of real political power or representation. That means that if the law is gutted or overturned, then it would be a huge problem for Democrats. But it seems that Democrats could lose as many as 19 seats in the House of Representatives if the Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights act and states are able to declare open season on communities of color and just gerrymander them out of all real representation.

[Noel King]

Slate's Mark Joseph Stern, he covers the law and he co hosts Amicus, the podcast coming up no country for Old Laws Stay turned. You'll get it by the time we finish. Support for Today Explained comes from the Economist. If you've ever wanted to know how the Economist decides how to cover the biggest stories shaping the world, check out the Economist Insider. Insider is a new premium video offering that provides unprecedented access to their journalists and senior editors. Step inside the spirited discussions behind the Economist, reporting direct access to the debates that shape how the Economist makes sense of a complex and turbulent world. Two Insider episodes will air each week. One will be hosted by Editor in Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes. Love her. And the other will be led by the Economist's Senior editor. In depth Discussions Geopolitics, Economics Defense Technology so Much More Insider explores the news and trends shaping the world now and what comes next. You can expect interviews with world leaders, thinkers, policy makers. So many prominent voices gain clarity in a complex world. Free at launch for all subscribers to the Economist. Learn [e-mail] Insider support for today Explained comes from Chime. Nobody likes fees and complicated banking, says Chime. And Chime gets that, says Chime. Chime is a financial technology company that says they understand that every dollar counts. So when you set up direct deposit through Chime, they say you get access to fee free features such as free overdraft coverage getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. So much more. Chime says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals. Plus, they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees. You can work on your financial goals through Chime today. You can open an account in two [e-mail] explained. That's chime.com explained. Chime feels like progress. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancor Bank NA or Stripe Bank NA members FDIC Spot me Eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file fees. Apply it out of network ATMs, bank ranking and number of ATMs, according to U.S. news and World Report 2023 Chime checking account required Every showgirl and boy needs brows that perform with NYX Professional Makeups the Brow Glue Crazylift. You'll have beautifully glossy laminated brows that are lifted and locked in for 24 hours. It has an easy to use built in brush and it's completely clear so it works on any brow color and shape. Get your brows showgirl ready with NYX Professional Makeup's the Brow Glue crazy lift. Visit nyxcosmetics.com to learn more.

[Mark Joseph Stern]

This is TODAY Explained.

[Ian Millhiser]

I'm Ian Millhiser. I cover the Supreme Court for vox.

[Noel King]

All right, you, Ian, have a problem with the Voting Rights Act. Tell me what your problem is and then we're gonna let you make your case.

[Ian Millhiser]

I mean, I hate every word of my case, so I'm not sure that don't put on me that I have a problem with the voting rights. But so here's the issue. So the premise of the Voting Rights act is that it comes out of the Jim Crow era when there was states who were engaged in a terrible evil. They were not allowing black people to vote, and the federal government was the good guy that would come in and force these states to become democracies. And it worked. And now the problem is that the federal government is the wrongdoers. I do not trust Donald Trump with power over federal elections. And I frankly don't trust most of the judges and most of the judges on the Supreme Court with power over federal elections. And at the very least, I think that calls for people like me. And I have historically thought of the Voting Rights act as something akin to a holy text because of all that it achieved to reconsider whether it makes sense to centralize this kind of power over elections in something as dangerous as this federal government.

[Noel King]

Ian, you're not a simplistic enough guy to say, you know, everything that Donald Trump does is wrong. You take the Supreme Court very seriously. What exactly has happened here with the Trump administration and with the justices that is making you so concerned about the VRA right now?

[Ian Millhiser]

In 2013, in a case called Shelby county, the Supreme Court effectively neutralized the provisions of the Voting Rights act that required states with a history of racism in elections to, it's called pre clearance to get approval from federal officials before their new election rules could go into place. This was to prevent states like Jim Crow Mississippi from disenfranchising black voters.

[Supreme Court Justice / Historical Voice]

Voting discrimination against African Americans was so entrenched and pervasive in 1965 that to cite just one example, less than 7% of African Americans of voting age in Mississippi have been able to register to vote. In contrast, 70% of white citizens of voting age were registered.

[Ian Millhiser]

And then it would take three, four, seven years before the litigation got figured out so you could strike down the law. And when Shelby county was handed down, I thought it was a catastrophe, and it is wrong. I mean, as a matter of law, Shelby county was wrongly decided. So Shelby county got rid of the Justice Department's power to block these laws. But federal judges still have the power to block state laws that they deem to be racist. And I have seen such bad faith behavior from the Republican justices and from judges on the lower court that I'm afraid that if they retain that power, they will also use it in bad faith. They will require blue states to draw maps that have more white Republican districts, and they will ignore things like racial gerrymandering in red states.

[Noel King]

You write that Chief Justice John Roberts has been skeptical of the Voting Rights act for a very long time. What's his history here?

[Ian Millhiser]

Yeah, so the supreme court, in a 1980 decision called City of Mobile, said that in order to win a Voting Rights act case, in order to show that a state law discriminated on the basis of race, you had to show that it was enacted with racist intent. And that's just very difficult to do. You know, judges are not mind readers. They can't probe the minds of state lawmakers to figure out what was in their souls when they passed a law. In the 60s, when the voting Rights act was initially enacted, like Jim Crow, lawmakers were sometimes very explicit that they were doing things for racist reasons.

[Supreme Court Justice / Historical Voice]

In one community, however, Tuskegee, Alabama, the population is six to one, Negro. But recently, registered Negroes for the first time outnumbered registered whites. Tuskegee is the home of Tuskegee Institute, a fine Negro college. And the Negro population is largely middle Class. The whites saw it coming. In 1957, the Alabama legislature, afraid of potential Negro political power, gerrymanded the Negro districts out of the city of Tuskegee.

[Ian Millhiser]

But by the 1980s, people who wanted to suppress the votes of minority voters were more sophisticated. You know, they understood the Voting Rights act existed, so they weren't saying things like, you know, the purpose of this law is to prevent black people from voting. And so the Supreme Court placed a very difficult barrier in front of voting rights plaintiffs. There was a bill in Congress to fix that and to create the modern law which says that any state law, that which results in someone being disenfranchised on the basis of their race, regardless of the legislature's motive, is invalid.

[Supreme Court Justice / Historical Voice]

Our Americans of Mexican descent, black Americans, this measure is as important symbolically as it is practically. It says to every individual, your vote is equal. Your vote is meaningful. Your vote is your constitutional right. I've pledged that as long as I'm in a position to uphold the Constitution, no barrier will come between our citizens and the voting booth.

[Ian Millhiser]

There was a significant faction within the Reagan administration that wanted Reagan to veto that bill. And John Roberts was a major figure within that faction, and he wasn't successful. But he clearly has carried that grudge for his entire career, because since he became Chief justice, it has just been one unrelenting attack on the Voting Rights act act after another.

[Noel King]

It sounds like people have been bringing challenges to the Voting Rights act for decades now. And in general, conservative justices tend to find the VRA problematic. They tend to want to vote to weaken it. Can you make their argument for them? What is their problem with the Voting Rights Act?

[Ian Millhiser]

So I'll make the cynical argument first, and then I'll make, like, the argument that they've actually made and shall be fair. So the cynical argument is that, like, you know, most black voters in particular are Democrats. And so I don't think it is hard for Republicans to imagine that they would have. It would be easier for them to win elections if they didn't have to write state election laws that accommodate the rights of black Democrats. That's the cynical argument. The argument they made in Shelby county is essentially racist. I mean, let me not be so dismissive. They don't think racism is solved, but they argue, and I mean, on this point, they are correct, that the United States is less racist now than it was in 1960 or 1965 when the voting Rights act was solved. And so we no longer need these protections because America doesn't have the same race problems that it had in Jim Crow. And I have two responses to that. One is simply that the Constitution says that Congress gets to enact laws to decide how the prohibition against race discrimination in election should be enforced. So even if you think John Roberts is right that we aren't racist enough to justify the Voting Rights act, the Constitution says it's not his choice, it's Congress's choice. And Congress decided to reenact the Voting Rights Act. So I think judge should have honored that. The other reason why I think he's wrong is because I think back to a case, I believe, from the 1880s that is just referred to as the civil rights cases. The civil rights cases struck down a Reconstruction era civil rights law. It required public accommodations, things like movie theaters. At the time, I guess it would have been theater theaters, not to engage in discrimination on the basis of race. And the Supreme Court didn't just strike that law down. They said in, you know, just, you know, less than three decades after the Civil War, you know, there comes a time when black people should no longer be treated as the special favorite of the laws, and instead they should be forced to just make their own way and, like, try to defend their own rights, just like anyone else has to in a democracy. And I mean, and now that we know what happened to black Americans after that decision, my God, was the Supreme Court wrong about that?

[Noel King]

And so in your piece, you come down arguing for federalism for states rights as a solution.

[Ian Millhiser]

You know, federalism, the idea that we should devolve power to the states is not something that, like people on my political side of the aisle have historically been very favorable to and for very good reason. You know, again, it was the federal government who were the heroes who came in and stopped the Jim Crow states from discriminating against black voters. But it is also the case, like, one reason why Trump hasn't been able to gerrymander every single state so that he locks Republicans into power in the House of Representatives forever is because states generally draw the electoral maps in the US and that means that blue states can counter Republican gerrymanders. And so, I mean, the problem of Donald Trump is a new enough problem that I don't know what the solution is. But I do know that one of the things that has stood as an obstacle against Trump's ability to fully consolidate power has been federalism.

[Noel King]

Ian Millhiser, he covers the Supreme Court and the law for Vox. Ian's the author of two books about the Court, including the How a Republican Supreme Court Is Reshaping America. Kelly Wessinger produced today's show, Aminah Elsadi edited, Patrick Boyd and Adrienne Lilly are our engineers, and Laura Bullard checks the facts. If you're a fan of Today Explained, you could consider becoming a VOX member. You get all kinds of cool perks. Ad free versions of this show, unlimited reading on the website, a member exclusive newsletter. So much you will support our work. We cannot make this show without VOX members. You should know if you sign up now, you will save 30% on an annual membership. You can go to vox.commembers to join. I'm Noel King. It's Today Explained.

[Ian Millhiser]

Sam.