president lyndon b. johnson signed the voting rights act into law. removing legal barriers for black voters, johnson not only made a quality at the ballot box of reality for everyone but he also ensured this nation s laws matched its revered ideals. and yeah, it s over the ensuing indicates protections under the act have been chipped away. most notably after the 2013 supreme court decision in shelby v. holder which made it easier for states to pass restrictive voting laws. still, the outcome of our elections and our democracy held firm. until january six 2020 line. an angry red violent mob stormed the capitol driven by one terrified goal. overturn a free and fair election. they were motivated by the lives of one. dan donald j trump. the new twice impeached thrice indicted for now former
ginni thomas another 25k and he directed her to bill a nonprofit he advised, the judicial education project, and to use that money to then pay ginni thomas for what he said was consulting work. the timing matters because it was in 2012 that the judicial education project filed its first amicus brief and it was in shelby v. holder, the land mark voting rights case in which the stream court struck down a provision of the voting rights act that is meant to protect minority voters. clarence thomas agreed with that decision, but actually wrote separately to say he would have gone further and struck down a broader provision in the law. that was the same outcome that the judicial education project had also advocated for, and i think, you know, this was a position. this was not a new position for thomas. he had held this position in the past, but the standard for
-on the day that rosa parks statue was erected in the capitol, the supreme court was hearing oral argument in shelby v. holder, the voting rights 1965 voting rights act law, to decide whether it was still constitutional. -this was a very big deal. remember what a moment in history it was when lyndon johnson signed the voting rights act. and now the supreme court said, you know what? times have changed. the old south is gone. these days of systematic exclusion of blacks are over. -the court gut the voting rights act. the irony in that is rosa parks was at the march from selma to montgomery, which was part of the move to get the voting rights act of 1965 passed in the first place.
regard to talking about ongoing investigations. and so i understand why he has to be more quiet than people would like. but i think there s also an educational component to this that i think needs to go on so that people understand if there is ultimate action by the justice department, it is not just sprung on the american people. so they have a sense of what s going on, why it s happening, and i think actually the january 6th committee hearings which begin i guess in the next month or so will help educate the people of the country about what exactly the justice department is looking at. you write extensively in your new book about voting rights. and the landmark supreme court decision that bears your name, shelby v. holder. you talk about the danger of states passing laws that make it harder for people to vote, but as you well know, federal voting legislation is stalled. you have some solutions in here. how realistic are they? well, there are a number of solutions that we talk abo