The NPR Politics Podcast - The Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Restrictive Voting Laws

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

In a 6-3 decision the Supreme Court upheld the state of Arizona's restrictive voting laws that some argued targeted black and brown voters. Plus, the court ruled in favor of rich donors seeking anonymity when donating to nonprofits, which could mean a lot for campaign contributors. This episode: Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Shoshana calling from Portland, Oregon at Providence Park. The time is 1222 p.m. on Thursday, July 1st. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but we'll still be pressing to be on top at the end of the season. I love that. I can't wait to get to a game. Oh, it sounds amazing. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Carrie Johnson, national justice correspondent. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And this morning, the Supreme Court closed out the term by issuing two of the biggest decisions of the year, one on voting rights and another on dark money in politics. Carrie, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with the state of Arizona and its restrictive voting laws. So can you talk

us through the specifics of this case? Sure. This was a case about two different Arizona laws. One said ballots that voters cast out of precinct don't count. And the other made it a crime for most people to collect other voters' mail-in ballots. And the court decided by a vote of six to three along ideological lines to uphold both of those Arizona restrictions, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the majority and the three liberal justices dissenting, sometimes quite bitterly. Now, how does this touch the issue of race under the Voting Rights Act, which of course was created in 1965, one of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation in history, if not the most successful? Well, in this case, in the lower court, there was evidence that Hispanic and black voters in Arizona get their ballots thrown out twice as often as white people for voting on a precinct.

And as far as that ballot collection or ballot harvesting law in Arizona, Arizona's Native American population living in rural areas sometimes lives like 45 minutes to two hours away from a mailbox. So the idea that neighbors might want to collect ballots and drive them to a mailbox or a central place makes a big difference for those voters, the people challenging the law and the DNC said. What did the court say about those barriers for people of color in voting? You know, the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, he didn't go as far as some conservatives wanted who are outside the court. He didn't set out a huge new bright line test for other voting restriction cases to come. But he did create some guideposts for the future

that may make it much harder for people to challenge other voting laws on the grounds they have the effect of discriminating against minority voters. Basically, Alito says mere inconvenience to vote is not sufficient to sue under the Voting Rights Act, and that the state has a strong interest in preventing fraud. We know that Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich cited possible voter fraud as a basis for both of these laws. And Justice Alito and the conservative majority basically said that states will have a strong interest in other cases if they cite possible fraud. The irony here, as Domenico knows, is that there's not a lot of evidence of actual voter fraud on the books. No, and actually, the last time that there was a ballot harvesting scandal,

it involved Republicans ballot harvesting in a North Carolina congressional race that became pretty high profile and went through the courts. So there have been lots of allegations on the right about what the left might be doing, but nothing that they've been able to prove in a widespread way. And, you know, a lot of this has to do with President Trump, former President Trump's sour grapes for losing the 2020 election. Domenico, it does seem worth noting, though, that Democrats obviously protest these laws. But in Arizona, these laws were in place for the 2020 election, and Joe Biden won that race, as did Democrats on the Senate level. So

I guess maybe the fear of the political impact of this among Democrats may not be as great as they fear if they're obviously already winning elections under these laws. Yeah. And look, the fact is, though, Democrats have been arguing for more access and more ease of access because of the types of people who generally have been marginalized in the past. When it comes to voting rights, we're talking about minorities. Kerry mentioned the Native American community. It's a lot harder for people with less means to have to be able to, as Kerry noted, drive 45 minutes somewhere to drop off their ballot. So that's what this really comes down to, because a big part of the Democratic base is, you know, a population that this makes it harder for them to be able to vote.

And Republicans just don't have that concern because on average, they're whiter and wealthier. You know, one other thing I throw in here, Sue, is that the dissent by Justice Elena Kagan here talked in part about, you know, a pattern of small or not so small inconveniences, and that a number of these restrictions could add up to being a huge burden on minority voters in Arizona or elsewhere. We're not talking here about, you know, poll taxes of decades and decades and longer ago. We're talking about, she said, more subtle inconveniences that have a disparate impact on people depending on their race, their class. A lot of people don't even own a car in this country. And so those kinds of things matter, the dissenters said. Do you think this decision is going to have a broader impact right now?

Because we've talked a lot on the podcast about Republican-led state activity to change voting laws, to make them more restrictive. Obviously, Democrats are planning a lot of legal challenges to those new laws. Is there going to be or is there expected to be a ripple effect from this decision down on these other new laws? Yeah, well, one thing I'm looking at is whether it will today's decision will significantly hamper the Justice Department's lawsuit against Georgia, which it just filed last Friday. You know, remember the Supreme Court in 2013 in that Shelby County v. Holder decision basically gutted the most effective part of the Voting Rights Act, Section 5,

which allowed the Justice Department to pre-approve any voting changes in places with a history of discrimination. That left in place this Section 2 tool, which hadn't been used very often. Today, the Supreme Court majority made it somewhat harder for minority voters to succeed using that only remaining part of the law that really is available to them, Section 2. And that means that in future challenges, they're going to have to meet a very high bar. And if their case gets to the Supreme Court, and it's still this six to three conservative majority, voting rights activists are not real excited about that prospect. And, you know, the White House came out with a statement just after this decision came out and said that the court's decision was harmful,

that it does not limit Congress's ability, though, to repair the damage done today. It puts the burden back on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act to its intended strength. And President Biden said that he was deeply disappointed in the decision. But Sue, as you well know, even though the Voting Rights Act used to be a thing that got broad bipartisan support, that's just not the case anymore. After, as Carrie alludes to that earlier Supreme Court case that essentially gutted Section 5. That's right. And I think the big problem that they're going to face in Congress, and you know, how many times have I said this on the podcast, they don't seem to have the votes

that they would need to get major legislation through the Senate. Now, what's interesting is Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, who's the critical swing vote on a lot of these issues, has come out in favor of a renewed Voting Rights Act. He supports it, but he has said he will not support changes to filibuster laws to make it easier to get it through the Senate. And frankly, I don't think there are 10 Republicans in the Senate that would be willing to change voting laws right now, certainly not under Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's leadership, who's been really resistant to any changes on voting laws on the federal level. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about the other decision that came down today affecting anonymous donors. Capitalism touches every part of our lives. Capitalism is a giant force that I don't understand. I feel that it's a very safe system. I'm constantly in fear of losing my job. It is our biggest success and our biggest failure.

On this special series from ThruLine, capitalism. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. And we're back. And in the other 6-3 decision today, the court sided with donors who want to remain anonymous. Domenico, this decision struck down an existing California law that requires nonprofits to file a list of their largest donors with the state. So break down this case for us. Yeah, I mean, the court essentially sided with nonprofits to keep their rich donors' names private. And look, when it comes to certain nonprofit classifications, you're allowed to keep those names private, but a state like California required them to disclose

those names privately to the state. The reason they do that is because they would use these names to follow the money, make sure that there isn't fraud or self-dealing or any other number of things. They have 115,000 nonprofits in the state of California. And a decision like this, which was 6-3, same ideological lines that Kerry noted in the first case, a decision like this makes it a lot harder to find the needle in this haystack

because now essentially they have to go looking for the hay. The reason that this case even got to the Supreme Court, though, was because the state of California messed up and made those donor names public because of a glitch in their system. And that really spurred Americans for Prosperity, which is that group that had been founded by the Koch brothers. I've heard of them. Right. Who've played heavily in our politics since at least the rise of the Tea Party in 2010. You know, they went to the court and said they think that this violates their donors'

First Amendment privacy rights. And the Supreme Court today agreed with that. Kerry, this decision seems pretty consistent with past Supreme Court decisions in which they have ruled that money is essentially political speech. Yeah, as Mitch McConnell points out all the time, and has been arguing all the way back to Citizens United, that famous money in politics case and earlier, the court majority generally has been quite protective of First Amendment rights here. And there was a strange bad fellows element to this case, because even though it was brought by that AFP group associated with the Koch brothers, you know, the ACLU and the NAACP kind of were in a weird position here. They also argued about First Amendment rights to association for their donors.

And so it produced kind of an interesting lineup. Definitely. And, you know, this, the reason NAACP was part of this, because a case involving the NAACP was the precedent that the court really relied on here. So, you know, in the ACLU, obviously, civil liberties is, you know, in their name. So that's what's most important to them. In dissent today, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that today's analysis marks reporting and disclosure requirements with a bullseye. And the reason why the three liberal justices and a lot of watchdogs think that this case in and of itself might not be as important as what might come. You see what I mean?

In the future, potentially, you know, one person who follows the court pretty closely said that the key point here is that it will be much harder to sustain campaign finance disclosure laws going forward, because there could be challenges to the constitutionality of disclosure laws writ large, and they could build upon this case. And based on what the conservatives in the court did today, they may very well have a shot. Oh, that's interesting that it would not just be about these sort of anonymous donations, but people that already have to disclose might request privacy now. Right. And we're talking then about federal laws where anybody who gives over $200 to a campaign has to have their name disclosed. Right. Do they come up with a case that the Supreme Court takes up and says and maybe agrees with them?

That is sort of the big fear from a lot of these pro-disclosure groups. I mean, it is worth stating that you can have an extraordinary amount of influence in our political system if you are very wealthy and not have to disclose any of it. An individual could pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the electoral system and never have to have anyone know about it. Not just the electoral system, Sue. We still don't fully understand who funded, to the tune of more than $10 million, ad campaigns and other campaigns to advance some of former President Trump's Supreme Court nominees. That's right. All right, that's a wrap for this podcast. But we'll be back in your feeds later today after a court in New York unseals charges against the Trump Organization and its chief financial

officer, Allen Weisselberg. We'll be back later to explain it and what it might mean for former President Trump. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Keri Johnson. I cover justice. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.