On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court essentially eviscerated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in Callais v. Louisiana. The 6–3 party-line decision effectively ends any protection against racial gerrymandering and vote dilution, and opens the doors to redistricting across the South that will likely decimate Black and Latino representation in Congress, as well as state legislatures and municipal governments.

Civil rights groups, Democrats, and moderate Republicans wanted to use the VRA reauthorization to clarify that Section 2 of the VRA prohibited election laws and procedures that had a racially discriminatory effect, not just those passed with clear racially discriminatory intent.

But ideological conservatives within the DOJ were spoiling for the fight. They were content to extend the act, just so long as it was impossible to use. Roberts led the way. Roberts’s papers from this era, housed at the National Archives, show his determination and dedication. They include memos and talking points, draft op-eds, scripted answers for bosses to deliver in meetings and before Congress, and presentations for senators and Hill staff. His files show how Roberts devised the messaging strategies that made it possible for the administration to claim that it supported reauthorization, while actually helping neuter the VRA—a skill he would go on to master as chief justice.

When Roberts was asked in his confirmation hearings by Democratic Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin why he then “want[ed] to make Section 2 cases so difficult to prove,” he distorted the 1982 political debate, rewrote its history, and downplayed his own leadership. One could even make the case that he misled Congress under oath.