Transcription
We all knew that the Supreme Court was going to take a hatchet to the Voting Rights Act. I mean, we didn't know exactly what it would do, but we knew that it was going to be bad. A 6-3 opinion authored by one of the most conservative justices on the court, Justice Alito, it gutted the Voting Rights Act in a cynical decision that didn't even have the honesty to just say the Voting Rights Act was struck down. The court said that minority voters can have their opportunity districts, but only if they support the candidates that the legislature wants them to. So, in other words, if the state of Alabama says that there should be all Republican seats, sure, you can sue to bring a Voting Rights Act claim, but only if you can show that the Black voters would support a Republican candidate. This is beyond a farce. This is beyond insulting. This is beyond just striking down the Voting Rights Act. This is the kind of gaslighting and misdirection that frankly is beneath what we should expect from the highest court in our country.
But the challenges that are in its wake, the follow-on effects from this decision are going to be even worse. We're just seeing them in the days that have followed. Already Florida, the day of the decision, passed a new map that trampled not only over the federal rights and the constitutional rights of Black and brown voters in that state, but also over the rights of all Floridians to not have their maps drawn on the basis of partisanship. That's in the Florida Constitution. It was put in the Florida Constitution by the voters of Florida in a series of referendums and ballot initiatives before the 2010 census. I know this because I litigated the cases after the 2010 census when the Republican legislature tried to partisan gerrymander anyway, and we sued and we won, and a new map was ordered. Well, here we are again with Ron DeSantis leading the charge on the same day that the Supreme Court handed down the *Clay* decision. Ron DeSantis engaged in extreme partisan gerrymandering. Now, that's going to be in court the moment he signs that bill into law. And we'll see what happens in Florida.
But again, the ripple effects of what the Supreme Court has unleashed, what Republicans unleashed with the wave of redistricting starting in Texas, what Donald Trump has unleashed by insisting that he is going to try to rig the 2026 elections. All of these are connected. So, what I'm hoping to do in this episode is to kind of walk you through all these pieces and help you understand that many of these don't stand alone. Many of these are interconnected, and the consequences for what we'll see this fall may very well be dramatic.
Now, let's start with the Voting Rights Act itself. It was enacted in 1965 to remedy widespread discrimination in voting. And from its start, it was under attack. In 1966, the attorney general for the state of South Carolina brought a case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This was *South Carolina v. Katzenbach*, in which the entirety, or the near entirety, of the Voting Rights Act was challenged. And in an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the Voting Rights Act. It upheld Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which is a provision that the Supreme Court gutted in 2013. And most importantly for today, it upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision that has nationwide application that prevents all kinds of racial discrimination, or at least it did until earlier this week when Justice Alito wrote the opinion that I mentioned.
But the fight over the Voting Rights Act didn't begin in 1966 and then end. It didn't kick up again in 2013, even with the challenges in the *Shelby County* case to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, or more recently with the challenge in Louisiana that led to the most recent opinion. No, there has always been a faction, always been a portion of the Republican party that has wanted to do away with the Voting Rights Act. That was true in the 1960s. It was true in the 1970s. It was true in the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and certainly now today. But what was different then than today is that the mainstream of the Republican party, the sort of responsible Republicans, the establishment Republicans, call them what you want, but they were committed to the Voting Rights Act. Now, to be clear, this commitment was not necessarily born out of love or out of loyalty to the Voting Rights Act. They were very oftentimes just very pragmatic. They thought that the Voting Rights Act was an important part of the fabric of American democracy. They knew that they would suffer reputational harm, perhaps business harm, political harm if they came out against it. You know, Justice Scalia, the iconic conservative justice, during a case challenging parts of the Voting Rights Act more than a decade ago, mused during oral argument that no member of Congress would ever vote against the Voting Rights Act because, after all, what elected official would want to say they oppose voting, or vote, or or voting by minorities? And so he used the fact that the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in 2006 by 98-0 in the Senate. He used that as a proof point to say, "Look, of course this is popular, of course Congress would never not vote to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. So the courts need to look at it skeptically."
Boy, was he wrong. Because while the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in 2006, and yes, it had been reauthorized in 1982 when Ronald Reagan, another conservative icon, called it, quote, "the crown jewel of American liberties, and we will not see its luster diminished." They did not foresee the party that would be taken over by Donald Trump. They did not understand that democracy was much more fragile than they thought. And perhaps they wished, because Donald Trump's Republican party does not just oppose the Voting Rights Act. Donald Trump's party celebrates undermining what it stands for: equal access to the ballot, non-dilution of your vote, free and fair elections. Those are all words that are threatening to Donald Trump's movement. Those are all words that he is trying to banish from the very concept of what it means to hold elections in 2026 and beyond.
So perhaps the most iconic moment we have seen since the ruling in *Clay* earlier this week came from the governor of Louisiana, the very state whose laws were at issue in the *Clay* decision. And I want to put this up on the screen because I want you not only to hear the words, but I want you to see the visual. It is a certificate with all of the fanciness and the seals and the grandeur of a state proclamation under the Great Seal of the State of Louisiana. Executive Department, Office of the Governor. Executive Order Number JML, the initials of the governor, 26-038, and then in all capital letters in bold italic font: STATE OF EMERGENCY. State of emergency. I mean, you might think there was a hurricane. You might think there was a natural disaster. You might think that there was a civil uprising. Because after all, what is it that the governor of Louisiana, using this fancy certificate, would declare a state of emergency? Suspension of closed party primary elections for the offices of Representatives in the United States Congress. The governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency to suspend the elections for Congress in the state of Louisiana. This was not the postponing of elections to be held. This was the suspension of elections that were already going on. Ballots had already been sent out to military and overseas voters, among others. They had already been cast by those voters. And yet the governor of Louisiana, on his own proclamation, without any legislative act, just his own signature, declared the elections suspended. Listen to this. Do not let the Overton window have shifted so far that you cannot hear the outrage, that you cannot feel the threat that we face when a governor, a Republican governor, issues a certificate by himself declaring an emergency and suspends elections taking place.
Now look, this is both a redistricting story and a story about authoritarianism. It can be both things at the same time. You don't need to choose. But you cannot let them confuse you into thinking this is just a story about a redistricting case from the Supreme Court that went back to Louisiana and the orderly administration of elections. This is about something much bigger than that. There is nothing orderly about a state of emergency being declared. A state of emergency, by definition, is not orderly.
Now, if what I am telling you right now, you are hearing for the first time. If what I am telling you right now does not square with what you have read elsewhere, it is because you are not subscribed to Democracy Docket. I founded Democracy Docket in 2020 to be not just a reliable source of news, information, analysis about what's happening to democracy in court, but to tell it like it is. Not to sugarcoat it, not to give you both sides, not to argue, "Well, on the one hand, the Democrats say this, and on the other hand, the Republicans say that." Everything Democracy Docket prints is accurate. You can't find anybody who's going to say that Democracy Docket doesn't print the truth, because among other things, we link to all the source documents. You can read the cases and the pleadings yourself. You can read this certificate that I'm quoting from right now and that I've put up on this screen. What Democracy Docket does is it is not beholden to any corporate overlord. It doesn't have any venture capitalists or private equity investors who are telling it to pull its punches. It wants nothing from this administration. It does not seek favor from them. It does not operate in fear from them. So, please do me a favor right now and become a Democracy Docket subscriber. The link to do so is in the description of this episode. It is right on the screen in front of you. And if you want to type it in yourself, to make sure you go there directly, go to democracy.com/youtube and you can become a subscriber now.
Now, the Republicans and much of the legacy media, they're going to say, "No big deal." You know, after all, I mean, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in favor of Louisiana. I'm sorry. What? How many times have you been told that even though you know, me and other pro-democracy lawyers, we win a case, that, oh geez, you know, it's just too late for it to be this cycle? I mean, sure, yeah, yeah, you've won, and you know, maybe that'll be true two years from now, but it's just too late, right? Something called the PCEL doctrine. Remember you've heard that, right? The idea that you get too close to an election, it's just too late to change the rules. For example, like let's say in 2022, I and my law firm brought a lawsuit saying that Louisiana was, I don't know, had unfair districts and violated the Voting Rights Act. And let's say we won. I mean, just imagine what the U.S. Supreme Court would do then on the shadow docket. Oh, I know what they do. They would say, you know what? Yeah, you won. But it's too late for this election. It's it's just too close. You know, it'll it'll confuse everybody. Election officials will have to reprint everything, and the voters, they'll get all sort of out of sorts. You don't have to imagine that, because that's exactly what happened in 2022. We struck down the map in Louisiana, and we were told, "Sorry, too late." That happens not infrequently. But yet here we are where voting has started, and the governor of Louisiana has said, "Not only is it not too late, but what the heck? I'll just declare a state of emergency by myself and say everybody who voted, too bad." Look, Louisiana's been sued over this. I don't think the governor has the power to do this, and I think he may well lose this case. And there's going to be a lot of back and forth that you're going to read about in the legacy media and like I said, at Democracy Docket, about what's happened in this court and what's happened in that court, because there's going to be a lot going on in Louisiana. But if you get lost in that minutia, then like I said, you are missing the rest of the story.
So let's talk about the rest of the story. What do we know Republicans are planning? And I don't mean because like we read some leak. I just mean because like we've listened to what the president of the United States has said. The president of the United States said that he wished he could cancel the midterm elections. Remember that? He told that to Reuters. He told the New York Times on the record that he wished he had seized the ballots in 2020. We've seen since then, he's had no problem going, you know, in Fulton County. He has said that he gets to decide who gets to vote by mail. I mean, he issued an executive order. I'm challenging it in court right now, but according to his executive order, he gets to tell the states, he gets to send them a list and say, "Look, if a voter is not on the list I send you, they can't vote by mail. And by the way, I'm going to send a list to the postal service, and they can't even carry a piece of mail that has a ballot unless it's on my list." He has said repeatedly that the states are his agents to count and tabulate votes, that they are to do what he wants, what Donald Trump wants. And when asked over and over and over and over again by his various sycophantic cabinet officials, well, they refused to say that they won't deploy ICE at the polls, use the National Guard, or even deploy the regular military. Yeah. Yeah. Pete Buttigieg was just asked that by Senator Slotkin. Will you at least concede, Secretary of Defense Hexath, that you won't deploy the active military? He didn't agree to that. He called it a hypothetical. Well, no kidding. It's a hypothetical. That's why it's being asked. It's saying in the future, if this thing happens, what will you do? I mean, cabinet officials answer hypotheticals all the time. That's what planning for the future is about. You know, if X happens, are you willing to do Y, or do you have a bright line? Is there anything you won't do that you're told to do by the president of the United States that is just too far? And the answer is for all of them, no. I mean, you got the attorney general saying, well, why wouldn't you have indictments? And by the way, we should be going after Donald Trump's political opponents. Why wouldn't we indict James Comey for putting seashells on a beach and taking a picture? I mean, he acts like it's totally normal. Heath says it's a hypothetical. We've watched this script over and over and over again. They're all going to do whatever Donald Trump says. And if Donald Trump issues an executive order declaring a state of emergency, suspension of elections for the office of Representatives in the United States Congress. Okay. Language that we just saw from the governor of Louisiana. I ask you, who in this cabinet is not going to execute that? Is Pete Buttigieg not going to use the military to execute it? Is the Department of Justice, is Todd Blanch, going to be like, you know, sir, really, you don't have that authority? Is White House counsel going to tell him no? Is the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who was, you know, last time I saw Tulsi Gabbard, she was lurking on an evidence truck with a bunch of ballots? No. No one's going to tell them no. I mean, the state officials will resist. Governors and secretaries of state and AGs in blue states, they'll resist. But you think they'll resist in Louisiana? You think Ron DeSantis is going to say, "I'm sorry, sir. No, no state of emergency here. You can't have our ballots. You can't tabulate them. We're going to insist that our election results are counted and tabulated by us. Sorry, Mr. President." You think he's going to do that?
Like, this is the thing. In 2026, there are elections in all 50 states. And it is great that Democrats control the governorship or the attorney generalship in, say, 20, 25 of those states, but what about the rest? What about Texas? What about Oklahoma? What about Florida? What about Louisiana? And so, look, I built Democracy Docket to keep you informed on this, which is why I want you to be a subscriber. And it is important that you sign up now. And part of the reason why is because you need to share this information with your friends, your families, your clients, your customers, your bridge club, your coffee group, because everybody needs to be aware that what is happening right now in states like Florida, what's happening right now in Louisiana, these are just dry runs for what Donald Trump wants to be able to pull off this fall. And right now, as dry runs go, I have to say this one's pretty successful.
Now, look, it may not be successful in court. We may be able to beat this back. We may be able to get judges to say, "No, Florida, you can't do what you're doing." And certainly, Governor of Louisiana, you don't get to do what you're doing. But the question is, will the public be tolerant of it? Because it's ultimately a question of whether or not the mood of the country, the people will simply say, "This is not okay." And the legacy media, they're not our friends. I mean, I'm not even bothering. I don't want to get your blood pressure up. Don't want to get my blood pressure up. I'm not even going to bother putting up the headlines of how this has been described in the legacy media. But we can't let it be normalized. So my first ask for you, like I said, is sign up. But also share this content with people so that there is not a normalization, there's not a shifting of this Overton window. But that in and of itself is not enough. Obviously, lawyers like me, we need to be prepared to go to court. And we need to be prepared to go to court not just in the swing states, not just in the purple districts, but we need to be prepared to go to court everywhere. Because you know what? There are red counties in blue states. There are blue cities in red states. And there are voters who frankly just deserve to have someone fighting for them and their voting rights, whether they are in a ruby red district or a blue district. No one should be disenfranchised because Donald Trump and the Republican party is not going to be there to protect you. And no one should be disenfranchised because their supporters, their governors, their election officials, their registrars are not looking out for you. And it's going to be hard because the big law firms, they're sitting on the sidelines. You know, there are the nine or so that capitulated to Donald Trump and gave him a billion dollars of free legal services, but then there are a whole bunch of others who are just hiding in the corner. They just don't want to be noticed. That just isn't my way. I mean, you know, hell, I'm already on Donald Trump's list, and he's on mine. So we have that going. We have that mutual situation going on here. He sued me for racketeering in Florida a number of years ago. I didn't settle that case. It never occurred to me to settle that case. I fought and I fought and I fought and I won, and then I won again in the Court of Appeals. And that's what we need people to do. We need more people willing to stand up and fight. We need more corporate leaders willing to stand up and fight. And we need more lawyers and law firms engaged in this fight because this stuff's going to be going on all over the place. And you know, like me and my legal team, we cover a lot of ground. We're in like 80 cases right now in 43 states. But this is going to be a big project, and we need lots of lawyers and legal organizations that are willing to take the heat, that are willing to stand up against this, and are not backing down, are not backing away, are not looking to stay out of the limelight, they are taking it on head-on.
But even with all the lawyers doing that, it's still frankly not going to be enough. So even if you share all the information, and we have all the lawyers, and everybody is prepped and ready to go, it's not going to be enough. So, that brings me to the biggest thing. You need to make sure you're registered to vote. You need to make sure you have a plan to vote. You know what the rules are because they may have changed. They may have changed your districts. They may have moved your polling location. They may have added a new ID requirement. Who knows what they're going to do? They may have removed you from the voter rolls because Donald Trump didn't want you on the list that he sent to the states from Washington D.C. Now, look, I'm fighting that in court. We're going to win that case. But you understand what I'm saying. The rules are going to be rigged against people like you, people like me, and certainly against minority voters after this decision. And so what we all need to do is we need to check our voter registration, and if we are not on the list, we need to re-register. We need to make sure that information is up to date. Then we need to make that plan to vote. And then most importantly, we need to turn out and vote. Because at the end of the day, we can protect the elections as best we can. We can go to court. We can raise awareness. But what will ultimately undo Donald Trump, what will ultimately be a check on him, is to elect a Democratic Congress in the House and the Senate, to elect Democratic governors, and to elect Democratic state legislators. Because here's the thing, this redistricting stuff, its next stop is going to be state legislatures all over the place. It's not just the Deep South. Like, I understand that is where the shark closest to the boat right now, because that's where the Voting Rights Act was protecting voters the most. But look, if there's one thing we've learned about the MAGA movement, is they take a kernel of a terrible idea in one place and they spread it everywhere. And so they will be weaponizing this not just in the Deep South, they'll be weaponizing this everywhere. We need to combat that by electing Democrats up and down the ticket. And legislatures and governors are critical because they will be in a position in 2027 and 2028 to either defend their existing maps or draw new ones. If you're coming here thinking I'm going to tell you that what we ought to do is just stand down after the 2026 election, you got the wrong guy. Republicans hate me because I fight, and they fear me because I win. And I am telling you that the fight of our lives is over democracy issues. And the fight that is going to be hotter and more intense than any other in 2027 and 2028 is not about the presidential election. It is going to be the continuation of the fights that have started over redistricting. Because even in the states that will not redistrict now because it's too late, even the Republican governors who don't want to pick that fight now, they will pick that fight in 2027. And they will pick that fight in 2028. And if Democrats in states they control are not ready to match them and exceed them and make it clear that this is not a freebie for Republicans to take advantage of Democrats who are playing by old rules, then we will be the losers. The only way we are going to get meaningful reform, the only way we're going to get nonpartisan redistricting, the only way we're going to get a ban on partisan gerrymandering, the only way we're going to pass a new pro-voting law that is further than that is better than the former Voting Rights Act. The only way we're going to do that is by having Democrats in power. We're not going to get there through unilateral disarmament and press releases. We're not going to get there by proclaiming we support good government when it is a one-sided proposition. We need to gain power to use that power to restore democracy.
A lot of you will agree with me on everything I just said. Some of you will agree with the sentiment, but think maybe I went too far. Do me a favor and leave a comment on this video. You know, I read the comments. I like to engage in how people think we're doing at Democracy Docket as a whole, how I am doing in these videos, how we're doing on our website and in our newsletters. Also, share this video with your friends. Share it with others so that they can also learn from it. And also because it will help Democracy Docket build a following in an ecosystem in which we need more assertive pro-democracy voices. So if you think that I'm adding something to that debate, if you think that Democracy Docket is adding to that body of knowledge, share this video and share its content broadly because it is important that we grow in scale and in scope and in influence as we head towards 2026.
I started by saying that the Voting Rights Act has always been under attack. The truth is, democracy has always been under attack in this country. We had Jim Crow, and before we had Jim Crow, women were not allowed to vote. And before women were not allowed to vote, only white men who held property were allowed to vote. It has never been a perfect democracy. Even with the Voting Rights Act, there were still too many who found themselves left out of the franchise, left themselves out of democracy, found themselves fenced out of the system by purposeful discrimination and purposeful voter suppression and election subversion. What Donald Trump did in the aftermath of 2020 was just that. It was an effort to fence out of the political process people who cast ballots for Joe Biden. So, that has always existed. And I'm not naive enough to think that that's going to end or that we're at the solution point. But if we give up now, if we just lose hope, then we are doing Donald Trump's bidding. So, like I said, the best way not to give up hope is to make a plan to vote and to register and to do all those other things. It is to speak out. It is to share this content. And it is to recognize that with every setback that comes, there is an opportunity. And there is an opportunity as we head to the 2026 election and the aftermath in 2027 and 2028, if Democrats control Congress, to do a world of good for democracy, more than frankly was done when we had the White House. This fight for democracy is the fight of our generation, and it's going to take time, but it starts with a single step. So, please join me in the first step by subscribing to Democracy Docket, sharing this video, and making a plan to vote. Thanks. I'll see you next time.