Harry Litman - Happy Birthday. Now Prepare to Die.

The Supreme Court Signals It May Lay Waste to the Voting Rights Act

Wednesday marked the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), widely regarded as the most effective civil rights statute in American history—and by many as the most successful piece of legislation in U.S. history.

Passed at the height of the civil rights movement, the VRA was a sweeping assertion of federal power in service of a basic democratic ideal: equal access to the ballot. And for decades, it worked. It became a powerful engine of political inclusion, racial justice, and democratic accountability.

The VRA was designed to enforce the promise of the Reconstruction Amendments—particularly the Fifteenth, ratified in 1870, which prohibits denying the right to vote “on account of race.” That promise was honored in the breach for nearly a century. After the brief flowering of Black political power during Reconstruction, Southern states erected a Jim Crow voting regime enforced by violence, fraud, and legal artifices like poll taxes, literacy tests, and all-white primaries. Even when courts struck down one tactic, states replaced it with another. By 1965, it was plain that constitutional language alone could not secure voting rights. Congress had to act.

https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/happy-birthday-now-prepare-to-die