SCOTUS, Louisiana, and the Voting Rights Act S4E208 10.22.2025

Today our question is from Spencer, who lives in Reno, NV, and Spencer asks Sometime next week, the SCOTUS will be hearing a case from Louisiana that is challenging the Voting Rights Act of (I think) 1963. In the past, the SCOTUS has pretty much weakened the Act over time. In a 1980 decision, the Supreme Court effectively concluded that only intentional discrimination violated the law. That decision drew significant criticism.  Two years later, Congress amended the provision to sweep in voting laws that had a discriminatory effect, regardless of whether challengers could prove intent. The new language, crafted by the late Sen. Bob Dole, barred any voting practice that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” Chief Justice John Roberts recently explained that “our country has changed” for the better. And that the deplorable conditions that prompted Congress to pass the voting rights law in the 1960s “no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions.”  Do you think Roberts is correct? If the SCOTUS sides with Louisiana, what might be the consequences for American Democracy?