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House of Representatives judiciary committee chairman Jerry Nadler signaled in the way he just addressed the witness, attorney general Merrick Garland, that Democrats on the committee are very keen to talk about voting rights, with the New York congressman talking of voting access being “under steady assault” in the US right now.

Nadler brought up the disastrous (for those keen on upholding maximum access to voting rights in America) 2013 Supreme Court decision, which the Guardian has called:

One of the most consequential rulings in a generation in a case called Shelby county v Holder. In a 5-4 vote, the court struck down a formula at the heart of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law that required certain states and localities with a history of discrimination against minority voters to get changes cleared by the federal government before they went into effect.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this decision. The power of the Voting Rights Act was in the design that the supreme court gutted – discriminatory voting policies could be blocked before they harmed voters. The law placed the burden of proof on government officials to prove why the changes they were seeking were not discriminatory. Now, voters who are discriminated against now bear the burden of proving they are disenfranchised.

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Source: The Guardian