likely to pass voter i.d. and other restrictions on the franchise. likewise, states with unencumbered republican majorities and large black populations were especially likely to pass restrictive measures. their broad conclusion, in other words, is that these laws are the result of fierce partisan competition. and this, julian, i guess, for me is the problem. i am a fan of, if you get elected, you have the right the right to govern. but you don t have the right to restrict the ability of people to hold you accountable, by either saying, we would like to return you to office or take you out of office. it s a remarkable development. 50 years ago, this country was in a heated, bloody fight with the right to vote. that culminated with the voting rights act, lyndon johnson, the 89th congress, where the government, the whole point was the federal government guarantee that those kinds of restrictions could not happen.
care more about germany than alabama. and it was true. he gets richard russell powerful senator from georgia and a segregationist to say protect my rear as i get out of vietnam and we ll go easy on civil rights. we would have had a vote rights act because that was too important black and whitish. we would have had a great society. that s not how john kennedy thought. johnson wanted to be fdr. in my alternate history johnson would have been kicked out of office because investigations would have continued had kennedy not been murdered. do you look at anyone in modern politic, do you look at bush v gore or obama die a bush v gore ebook because people demand it. this book ends in 1968. also by the way i should mention take it through john kennedy s private life because tissue of whether his sexual behavior would have become public.
justice. if filling her vacancy is left up to a republican president that could drastically change the court. arnie is joining me now along with rick. gentlemen, good to have you here. let s start out talking about the fact that in this conversation, justice ginsburg discussed the voting rights a.m. act and candid in her displeasure with the court saying, quote, the following. what do you make that have? the most activist courts in history. i think it s true if we take activism and define it by a willingness to overturn things and congress that is sdon and acceptable for congressed for a long time. the voting rights act is a prime example because it had been signed by republican presidents repeatedly reauthorized about bipartisan majorities and thrown
out the window. rick had written about the reasons that the voting rights act was going to face greater challenges and one interesting part that justice ginsburg mentions was that she would not have signed on to a 2009 opinion or at least wasn t as comfortable with it now seeing how roberts used it to go right at the heart of one of these important civil rights precedents. a lot of people look when we hear the word activist we think of it in a different texture as how the justice was using it in reference to vra. if you look at striking down federal legislation is unconstitutional this court has probably done more of that than any court in many, many decades. but, of course, the court reflects the times we live in and the level of contempt for congress in the country highest level it s at also in many decades. so i don t think these two things are unrelated. justice ginsburg did sign on to an opinion questioning the
constitutionality of the voting rights act and said i made a mistake and now emerge as the leading critic of the court s recent decision. and this article was written and here is what was said on morning joe this morning regarding the activist court comment. take a look. she is using activism in a particular sense because some people say judicial activism whenever they want to insult the other side, she is talking about the propensity of this court which she thinks is high to strike down congressional legislation. basically to strike down congressional legislation. normally it s the right insulting the left and activist court but her taking a swipe at the right. but when we talk about the makeup of the court, rick and ruth bader ginsburg considering or talking about what retirement means for her at 80 and we know 80-year-olds in our lives, i have parents. yep.