On Wednesday, Republicans blocked a vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Supreme Court’s gutting of the landmark voting rights law in 2013—and the lack of congressional action to fix it—means that the current redistricting cycle is the first in more than 50 years where states with a long history of discrimination do not have to approve their voting maps with the federal government.
Voting rights advocates are urgently warning that the absence of federal voting rights protections is having a devastating impact on representation for communities of color, erasing decades of hard-fought gains for once-disenfranchised groups and preventing fast-changing demographics from leading to a shift in political power, particularly in the South.
“Not to be melodramatic, but the South is burning,” says Allison Riggs, co-executive director of the North Carolina-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which is heavily
— source motherjones.com | Ari Berman | Nov 5, 2021