Voting rights legislation to limit bills with voting restrictions

President Biden is pressing for voting rights legislation that would limit bills aimed at suppressing access to voting. David Daley, a noted author and voting rights expert, joins us to discuss the latest in voting rights, as well as a look at the history of voting rights dating back to President Johnson. 

We asked Daley what his thoughts were on voting restrictions as they stand now.

“What we are seeing is that the U.S. Supreme Court has essentially handed state legislatures a green light for really what ever kinds of voting restrictions that they desire to impose,” Daley said.

Daley believes that this is a really scary moment since they have done this at a time when other state legislatures believe that voter fraud took place.” Daley said this belief is incorrect.

We asked Daley if the belief that the election was fraudulent has increased bills designed to suppress voting.

“I think the first accelerator is the Supreme Court decision in 2013 in the Shelby County v. Holder case, which eliminated pre-clearance,” Daley said.

Daley explained this meant that states with a history of racial prejudice in their voting laws had to get their laws pre-cleared by the department of justice. Arizona was one of many states that were required to take this step.

In the last four months, we have seen around 400 bills brought forth that include voting restrictions.

“Almost all of them justified, lawmakers say, by trying to root out voter fraud,” Daley said. “The trouble is that they can’t actually point to any evidence of voter fraud.”

“The Supreme Court is really squeezing the life out of the Voting Rights Act,” Daley said. “It’s really hard to see what voting right this court wouldn’t have a problem with.”