Host Simone Leeper is joined by George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton, alongside Campaign Legal Center’s Gilda Daniels and Bruce Spiva, to examine how the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and Trump's redistricting push have left voters of color with fewer protections — and what it will take to get them back.
For 60 years, the Voting Rights Act stood as the most powerful tool for protecting voters of color from discrimination at the ballot box. But in a single decision earlier this year, the Supreme Court gutted it and opened the door for states to enact discriminatory voting maps and laws.
On this episode of Democracy Decoded, host Simone Leeper is joined by Gilda Daniels, University of Baltimore law professor, former DOJ attorney, and Of Counsel at Campaign Legal Center;, George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton; and Campaign Legal Center senior vice president Bruce Spiva to examine how the court's ruling in Louisiana v. Callais weakened Section 2 of the VRA, and how President Trump's redistricting push is undoing districts that gave communities of color a voice. They also discuss what solutions — from state-level voting rights acts to proportional representation — could help preserve our country’s true, multi-racial democracy.
Episode Highlights:
5:00 – What is the history of America’s multiracial democracy?
7:35 – What made the Voting Rights Act the most successful civil rights law in history?
9:26 – How did Section 2 become the VRA's most vital and embattled protection?
11:27 – What did the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais actually do?
12:50 – How has partisan gerrymandering been positioned as a loophole for racial discrimination?
16:17 – How did Trump's redistricting push trigger an arms race across states?
18:46 – What happens when voters ban gerrymandering and lawmakers do it anyway?
20:21 – Could proportional representation be the structural reform our democracy needs?
22:03 – Can Americans still reform their democracy when institutions fail to protect it?
25:40 – Does the power to change democracy still belong to the people?
27:06 – What's at stake in the fight for the freedom to vote?
Host and Guests:
Simone Leeper litigates a wide range of redistricting-related cases at Campaign Legal Center, challenging gerrymanders and advocating for election systems that guarantee all voters an equal opportunity to influence our democracy. Prior to arriving at CLC, Simone was a law clerk in the office of Senator Ed Markey and at the Library of Congress, Office of General Counsel. She received her J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 2019 and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 2016.
Gilda Daniels is a Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She teaches Election Law, Appellate Advocacy, Federal Courts, Civil Procedure, and Critical Legal Theory, which includes jurisprudence, critical race theory, socioeconomics, and access to justice. Daniels, an expert on voting rights, has served as a deputy chief in the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Voting Section, in both the Clinton and Bush administrations. She has more than twenty years of voting rights experience, bringing cases that involved various provisions of the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act and other voting rights statutes. Before beginning her voting rights career, Daniels was a staff attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, representing death row inmates and bringing prison condition cases. She also serves as Of Counsel at Campaign Legal Center.
Spencer Overton is the Patricia Roberts Harris Research Professor of Law and the founder and faculty director of the Multiracial Democracy Project at GW Law School. The Project is currently working on the implications for multiracial democracy of: 1) proportional representation (particularly in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act); 2) artificial intelligence; and 3) court reforms.
Spencer served in senior democracy policy positions on the 2008 Obama presidential campaign and transition team, and he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served for nine years as president of and rebuilt the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies—America’s Black think tank—where he established programs in technology, the future of work, economics, and diversity among congressional staff and presidential appointees. His work on national election reform commissions resulted in Iowa restoring voting rights to over 80,000 returning citizens and Democrats moving diverse states like South Carolina and Nevada to the beginning of their presidential primary process. He practiced law at Debevoise & Plimpton, clerked for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Damon Keith, and graduated with honors from both Hampton University and Harvard Law School.
Bruce Spiva is an attorney and community leader who has spent his over 30-year career fighting for civil rights and civil liberties, voting rights, consumer protection, and antitrust enforcement. Over the past three decades, he has tried cases and argued appeals in courtrooms across the country, including arguing against vote suppression in the United States Supreme Court in 2021. In 2022, in his first run for public office, Bruce mounted a competitive run in the primary election for Washington, D.C. Attorney General.
Prior to joining Campaign Legal Center as Senior Vice President, Bruce founded his own law firm, where he practiced for eleven years. He has held several leadership and management positions as a partner at two national law firms. He first-chaired twelve voting rights and redistricting trials across the country, and argued numerous voting rights appeals in U.S. circuit courts and state supreme courts.
For decades, Bruce has fought for statehood and local autonomy for the people of Washington, D.C. He has served as the chair and is a current board member of DC Vote, an organization dedicated to securing statehood for the people of the District of Columbia. Bruce was honored as a DC Vote Champion of Democracy in 2012. In 2007, he testified before the U.S. Congress in favor of the proposed D.C. Voting Rights Act.
Links:
The U.S. Supreme Court Has Eviscerated the Voting Rights Act — What’s Next?
What’s next after a devastating voting rights ruling by SCOTUS?
What the Latest SCOTUS Rulings Mean for Our Democracy and the Rule of Law
What Is Gerrymandering? | Campaign Legal Center
How Can We Combat Gerrymandering? | Campaign Legal Center
How CLC Is Pushing Back on the Trump Administration’s Anti-Voter Actions
About CLC:
Democracy Decoded is a production of Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan legal organization dedicated to solving the wide range of challenges facing American democracy. We fight for every American’s freedom to vote and participate meaningfully in the democratic process, particularly Americans who have faced political barriers because of race, ethnicity or economic status. To make a tax-deductible donation to Campaign Legal Center, visit campaignlegal.org/donate
Democracy Decoded is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.