On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court essentially eviscerated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in Callais v. Louisiana. The 6–3 party-line decision effectively ends any protection against racial gerrymandering and vote dilution, and opens the doors to redistricting across the South that will likely decimate Black and Latino representation in Congress, as well as state legislatures and municipal governments.
The central question in this case has a long history—and it begins with John Roberts’s very first days in Washington, DC, as a young aide in Ronald Reagan’s Department of Justice.
When Roberts first arrived at the DOJ in 1981, fresh off a clerkship for William Rehnquist at the Supreme Court, he was assigned two important portfolios: prepping Sandra Day O’Connor for her confirmation hearings before Congress, and drastically curbing voting rights.
O’Connor sailed through the Senate. The VRA would be more contentious: A 1980 Supreme Court decision in Mobile v. Alabama had required plaintiffs pursuing a Section 2 claim to prove that lawmakers had racial intent. That’s difficult to demonstrate, and brought nearly all Section 2 litigation to a halt.
Civil rights groups, Democrats, and moderate Republicans wanted to use the VRA reauthorization to clarify that Section 2 of the VRA prohibited election laws and procedures that had a racially discriminatory effect, not just those passed with clear racially discriminatory intent.
Congress intended to remedy all racially discriminatory effects. John Roberts had a different idea.
The Reagan administration was divided. Moderate Reaganites did not want to battle over something popular and historic. But ideological conservatives within the DOJ were spoiling for the fight. They were content to extend the act, just so long as it was impossible to use. Roberts led the way.
Roberts’s papers from this era, housed at the National Archives, show his determination and dedication. They include memos and talking points, draft op-eds, scripted answers for bosses to deliver in meetings and before Congress, and presentations for senators and Hill staff. His files show how Roberts devised the messaging strategies that made it possible for the administration to claim that it supported reauthorization, while actually helping neuter the VRA—a skill he would go on to master as chief justice.