Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03) voted to pass H.R. 4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, much needed legislation she cosponsored to restore key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) that were gutted by the Supreme Court in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder and 2021 Brnovich v. DNC decisions.

“The Voting Rights Act used to be revered across the political spectrum as landmark legislation that set us on course to relegate government-sponsored racial discrimination to the history books. But today, it has become a target for an entire political party whose desire to win means attacking the right to vote and risking the destruction of our democracy’s foundation,” said Congresswoman Trahan. “Passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act gets us one step closer to securing that foundation. By restoring and strengthening the VRA, we’ll once again ensure that every American, regardless of their race or ethnicity, has an equal voice at the ballot box. To protect the right to vote, we must make this legislation law.”

For nearly five decades, the VRA protected the voting rights of Black and minority voters by requiring states and localities with a track record of voter discrimination to seek and obtain pre-clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice before making changes to their voting laws. Despite the success of the legislation, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder that voter discrimination was a relic of the past and the formula used to determine which states and local governments were subject to the VRA was outdated.

Since that decision, a wave of legislation has been enacted in Republican-controlled states to limit the right to vote, especially for minority voters. In many of the most recent cases, politicians have capitalized on the Big Lie spread by the previous president to push discriminatory laws that strengthen their chances of winning future elections. Despite this dangerous trend, the High Court went a step further earlier this year in its Brnovich v. DNC decision, which upheld Arizona’s voting laws targeting Latino and other minority voters by making it harder to challenge racially discriminatory voting laws under the VRA.

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act protects voters from discrimination at the ballot box by restoring and strengthening critical protections included in the VRA more than a half century ago. Specifically, the legislation would reinstate an updated prohibition on state and local governments with a recent history of voter discrimination from implementing policies that restrict the right to vote. It would also amend Section 2 of the VRA to eliminate the Supreme Court-created standard that currently makes it more difficult for voters to challenge discrimination.

Trahan supported passage of a previous version of H.R. 4 during the 116^th Congress and cast her vote once again for H.R. 1, the For The People Act earlier this year. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act is supported by a wide array of civil rights organizations, including The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Southern Poverty Law Center and SPLC Action Fund.

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