In 2012, the Supreme Court gutted voting rights by ruling in Shelby County v. Holder that states with a history of voter suppression could now change their election laws without prior court approval. That attack on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a modern wave of voter suppression of already marginalized communities very much including young people of all races (18 to 29) who as boomers, millennials or gen Xers had already been chronically and disproportionately underrepresented in the electorate.
For the last four congressional sessions, beginning in 2015, legislation has been introduced to restore the Voting Rights Act's lost protections, but absent the 60 votes required to outmaneuver a Senate filibuster, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, in whose honor the current voting rights bill was named, went to his grave in 2020 with his legacy unfulfilled.
