How Preclearance Rewired American Politics

In this episode, we explore how preclearance rewired american politics. So in 1964, which is a full century after the end of the Civil War, The black voter registration rate in the state of Mississippi, it was a dismal 6 .7%. Just incredibly low. Right. But then just five years later, that number had skyrocketed to 66 .5%. Yeah, which is just, it's staggering. It really is. Now that is not just a policy success. That is a full blown political earthquake. So welcome to today's Deep Dive. Glad to be here. We are looking at a massive stack of sources today. I mean, everything from constitutional law reviews, historical department. of justice records, down to some recent, really deeply divided Supreme Court dissents. It's a heavy stack for sure. It is. And our mission, we want to take a comprehensive look at the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And for you listening, while you likely already know the broad remedy. They needed to write a law that actually anticipated the bad faith of local officials and preempted it entirely. And that proactive remedy was the informally named Dirksenbach Bill. drafted by Katzenbach alongside Senators Mike Mansfield and Everett Dirksen. This is where the actual legal architecture just blows my mind. The way they designed this law was a two -pronged approach. First you have the general provisions. which were mostly housed in Section 2. Yes, Section 2. This was a permanent nationwide ban prohibiting any voting practice that discriminates on the basis of race. And we really should pause on Section 2 because an amendment in 1982 significantly changed its mechanics. Oh right, the intent versus effect thing. Exactly. Originally, courts interpreted Section 2 to require proof of discriminatory intent. You had to prove the lawmakers actively wanted to suppress minority votes. Which has to be incredibly difficult to