voting – WUVS 103.7 The Beat

DOJ Civil Rights Division slammed for new 2nd Amendment office despite abandoning cases of racial discrimination, voting rights

The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division established an office focused on the Second Amendment, a move that is being slammed by civil rights and racial justice leaders who decried the DOJ’s reversal on investigating claims of racial discrimination and other social justice issues. The Second Amendment Rights Section will be dedicated to protecting gun rights, an issue that has been a long-standing concern for conservatives. Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has shifted the focus […]

December 6, 2025 1

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Supreme Court lets Texas use disputed voting map— for now

The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily cleared the way for Texas to use its newly redrawn congressional map in the 2026 midterm elections. Civil rights groups say the map was engineered to dilute the voting power of voters of color. The order came late Friday (Nov. 21) from Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency matters arising from the region. His administrative stay blocks a lower-court ruling and gives the full court time to decide whether Texas can keep the map […]

November 22, 2025

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Meet Janai Nelson, the attorney who just argued her first Supreme Court case to protect Black voting rights

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a consequential voting rights case that could either solidify or dismantle the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965–which has protected Black voters from racial discrimination in the electoral process for six decades. Janai Nelson, a longtime civil rights attorney, was the woman who argued on behalf of Black voters and what is left of the VRA in Louisiana v. Callais. It was Nelson’s first case before the Supreme […]

October 16, 2025 1

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Supreme Court case could grant Trump and Republicans power to trample Black voting rights for one-party rule, advocates warn

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case that could effectively kill the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and allow the Republican Party to redraw voting maps without existing protections from racial discrimination for Black communities across the country. “They can literally create a permanent one-party rule system without the Voting Rights Act in place–and doing it at the expense of Black communities and Black voters,” Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told theGrio. The […]

October 16, 2025

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Supreme Court takes up Republican attack on Voting Rights Act in case over Black representation

A Republican attack on a core provision of the Voting Rights Act that is designed to protect racial minorities comes to the Supreme Court this week, more than a decade after the justices knocked out another pillar of the 60-year-old law. In arguments Wednesday, lawyers for Louisiana and the Trump administration will try to persuade the justices to wipe away the state’s second majority Black congressional district and make it much harder, if not impossible, to take account of race in redistricting. “Race-based redistricting is fundamentally […]

October 13, 2025

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Texas governor signs new voting maps pushed by Trump to gain five GOP seats in Congress in 2026

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday signed into law a new congressional voting map designed to help Republicans gain more seats in the 2026 midterm elections, delivering a win for President Donald Trump and his desire to hold onto a slim GOP majority in the U.S. House. The Texas map drafted in rare mid-decade redistricting prompted fierce protests from Democrats and sparked a gerrymandering tug-of-war for voters in states across the country. Before Texas lawmakers passed their new map, California had passed a bill that will ask voters […]

August 29, 2025 2

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60 years after the Voting Rights Act was passed, Black voters are still fighting for access: ‘So much is at stake’

In a speech before he signed the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson said of the landmark civil rights law, “Today we strike away the last major shackle…the Negro story and the American story fuse and blend.” “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men today…the last of the legal barriers is tumbling,” […]

August 6, 2025

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‘Who’s got next?’ Democrats already lining up for 2028 presidential race in early voting states

The first presidential primary votes won’t be cast for another two and a half years. And yet, over the span of 10 days in July, three Democratic presidential prospects are scheduled to campaign in South Carolina. Nearly a half dozen others have made recent pilgrimages to South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa — states that traditionally host the nation’s opening presidential nomination contests. Still other ambitious Democrats are having private conversations with officials on the ground there. The voters in these states […]

July 16, 2025

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60 years after ‘Bloody Sunday,’ leaders say voting rights and racial equality have declined

Civil rights leaders and elected officials commemorated on Friday the 60th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the day voting and civil rights activists were violently beaten and injured by law enforcement officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama while protesting the right to vote for Black Americans in the Jim Crow South. The bloody images of that day shared around the world helped to contribute to the larger movement’s achievement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, marking a […]

March 7, 2025 1