While many Americans think of civil rights protections as permanent, like text etched in stone, there are cracks in the foundation. To understand what we’ve lost, we must first consider what we had. According to Carol Anderson, the author of One Person, No Vote, the VRA represented a “seismic shift in thought, action, and execution for the U.S.” While the federal government initially adopted a passive approach “waiting for locales to violate the rights of American citizens and sitting still until those who had been routinely brutalized by the system made a formal complaint, the VRA put the responsibility for adhering to the Constitution onto the state and local governments.”
The government took affirmative action to ensure citizens were afforded equal access to the ballot box. However, the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby v. Holder (2013) chipped away at a key provision of the legislation. By declaring the formula used …
