MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to spend some time thinking about the ripple effects of that Supreme Court draft opinion that shocked the country when it was leaked earlier this month. It signaled that the justices are poised to overturn the decision that legalized abortion, Roe v. Wade. The leak of the draft opinion has reignited debates over the power of the high court and whether it needs reform. But it's not the first action by the court to provoke that debate. It's just the latest. And one person who's thought a lot about this is former Attorney General Eric Holder. Holder, who served in the Obama administration and was the first African American to serve in that position, is just out with a new book. It's called "Our Unfinished March." And in it, he argues in favor of changes, including significant change to the process for appointing justices. When we spoke, he told me what brought him to that conclusion.
ERIC HOLDER: The Shelby County case in 2013, where the court essentially gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which is the pearl of the civil rights movement, and did so in a way that was inconsistent with the findings that Congress had made - thousands of pages of evidence, thousands of pages of testimony, near unanimous authorization or reauthorization in Congress, both at the House of Representatives and in the Senate, signed by - or the re-authorization signed by a Republican president. And yet five justices decided to turn their backs on all of that and came up with a rationale, as expressed by the chief justice, that America has changed. The court has shown itself, I think, to be ideological - not necessarily partisan, but ideological in a way that's inconsistent with what their duties are. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book. And you're very correct in saying my concerns about the Supreme Court predate anything that the court might do with Roe v. Wade.
