Richard Hasen

Both the SAVE Act and the SAVE America Act would impose documentary proof of citizenship requirements to register to vote.

So that's different than voter ID, and there's not public support for that.

There's public support for general voter identification requirements, but not for show me your papers.

You can't register to vote unless you could produce an original of your birth certificate or your naturalization certificate and your marriage license, if you've changed your name,

Or your passport.

Passport, I believe, still cost $180 to get.

So this would kind of have a skewing effect towards those who are wealthier who could produce these kinds of documents.

There's not public support for that.

So the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had an important amendment that was made in 1982.

It's commonly referred to as Section 2, and it's the part of the Voting Rights Act that requires, in the context of redistricting, the drawing of districts where minority voters—Black, Latino, Native American, Asian American—voters get a chance to elect a candidate of their choice.

It has led to great growth in the number of minority preferred candidates.

And if you look at Congress now, of the 435 members, over 100 of those members identify with one of these communities.

There's a case in front of the Supreme Court now called Louisiana v. Calais.

It's a complicated case.

It was first argued last March, where the Voting Rights Act itself was not really at issue.

Instead, the question was whether it violated the Constitution for the state of Louisiana to take race too much into account in how they drew district lines.

We had expected an opinion in the Calais case at the end of the Supreme Court's term last June.

Instead of an opinion, we got an order from the Supreme Court saying the case was going to be re-argued.

In the middle of the summer, on a late Friday afternoon in August, the Supreme Court said, here's what we want you to brief in our re-argument.

And it was about whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act might now be unconstitutional.