Terry Gross

He teaches law and political science at UCLA, where he also directs the Safeguarding Democracy Project, and he's the founder of the popular Election Law blog.

We'll be right back.

This is Fresh Air.

I want to play a clip of something that President Trump said during his State of the Union address about how he'd like to change how elections are administered.

Let's just go through what Trump said in the State of the Union address.

He said that, you know, 89% of American people are for voter ID.

That doesn't mean they're for the form of voter ID that Trump wants, which is a much more extreme, hard-to-get form of voter ID.

There's another part of the Voting Rights Act, one of the civil rights bills, that's being contested in court now.

Can you talk about that?

And what impact do you think this would have?

You would like to see our Constitution updated, but you don't specifically like to see a new constitutional amendment regarding voting.

What would you like it to say?

Thank you so much for your time today and for explaining some really complicated things that are going on in our election system right now.

Rick Hasson is the founder of the Election Law blog, and he's a professor of law and political science, as well as director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the UCLA School of Law.

His latest book is called A Real Right to Vote.

We recorded our interview yesterday morning.

Later in the day, the Supreme Court announced an emergency decision pertaining to redistricting and the midterms.

A lawsuit filed by four New Yorkers challenged the map of a district redrawn in 2024 by Republicans to include parts of both Staten Island and Brooklyn.

The lawsuit argued that the redrawn map was unconstitutional under New York State's constitution because it diluted the power of black and Latino voters.

A lower court ruled in favor of the Democrats.