In a moment when we should be celebrating one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history, we are in fact at a worse place as a nation than when it was passed. Those of us fighting to protect the right to vote find ourselves against a movement that doesn’t want to take us back to 1965. They want to create an America that more closely resembles the one of 1865.
Sixty years ago, in a rare and profound act of consensus, Congress passed a law to end the centuries-old rigging of American democracy. Yet today the system is as rigged as ever, with the battered Voting Rights Act on life support.
