One morning a little over 10 years ago, Congresswoman Terri Sewell sat next to John Lewis at the US supreme court as they listened to oral arguments in Shelby county v Holder. They heard lawyers fight over the constitutionality of a formula requiring states with a history of voting discrimination to get voting changes pre-approved by the federal government before they went into effect.
Sewell, a Democrat, grew up in Selma, Alabama, the town where Lewis was nearly killed decades prior as he marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to advocate for voting rights. At the time of the arguments, she was beginning her second term representing Alabama’s seventh congressional district, which includes both Selma and Montgomery.
Months later, in a 5-4 decision, the supreme court would rule that it was in fact unconstitutional, unleashing a wave of voter suppression across the US. Since then, Sewell has emerged as one of the loudest advocates for restoring full pre-clearance. In the years that followed the decision, she and Lewis introduced legislation that would put in place a new pre-clearance formula (the bill was renamed the John R Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act after Lewis’s death in 2020). Last year, the bill passed the US House, but ultimately failed in the Senate when two Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, refused to get rid of the filibuster – a Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation.
The Guardian spoke with Sewell about the consequences of the Shelby decision and the prospect of getting a new pre-clearance formula in place.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Looking back at the last 10 years, what do you think has been the biggest impact of the Shelby decision?
State legislatures have closed polling stations, they have purged voter rolls, they have imposed strict ID requirements, they have banned early and absentee voting and so much more. Over the last 10 years, we have seen some state legislatures run amok, without any mechanism to enforce the intent of the Voting Rights Act.
The biggest impact has been that we have seen a wave of voting restrictions targeting minority voters really unleashed in the last 10 years.
The basis of the Shelby decision was the idea that things have changed in the south. There’s no longer literacy tests or people asking how many jellybeans are in a jar – that kind of voting discrimination doesn’t exist. When you talk to people who are skeptical that there is still voter suppression, how do you convince them that it still exists today?
It’s a modern-day poll tax to require that in order for felons to restore their voting rights, they have to pay all their court costs. Florida had that one. I talk about how North Dakota’s state legislature passed a law that in order to register to vote, you have to have a physical address, knowing that Native Americans in that state have PO boxes and not physical addresses. Regardless of what the intent of that law was supposed to be, the effect of that law was to make it harder for Native Americans in that state to vote.
Or the crazy laws that Georgia passed that you can’t even pass out water while people stand in lines. We are seeing polling stations close across this nation without any notice given to people. And so, these are modern-day barriers to voting. These barriers very much affect access and they’re particularly targeted at underserved communities, whether that’s minority voters or senior citizens or students. It seems to be very targeted, these voting restrictions. Old battles have become new again, [though] they may be disguising themselves in other forms. But the effect of it is still the same and that’s to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote. And it’s simply unacceptable.
It’s interesting that [before the 10th anniversary], the Milligan case was decided a week and a half ago. I can’t tell you how historic that is. It upheld the Voting Rights Act. It didn’t further gut the Voting Rights Act like everyone else thought it was going to. I think it’s great that we now know that the Voting Rights Act is alive and well and enforceable. And the state of Alabama now has to draw a map that doesn’t dilute the vote, that’s huge.
It doesn’t get us past Shelby. Shelby was about state legislatures and jurisdictions that have a history of voter discrimination having further review by the justice department so that we can prevent a lot of those laws from going into effect.
On the topic of Milligan, what do you think that will mean to Black voters in Alabama to get more representation in Congress?
This victory is huge. It’s huge for Black voters in Alabama, who for the first time since reconstruction, have the opportunity to elect candidates of our choice. Even during reconstruction, I don’t know if Black voters had two representatives at the same time. It’s a huge opportunity for us to pick up another seat. For me, I’m going to be looking at these maps and seeing whether or not they truly do give an opportunity for a Black Alabamian to actually hold those seats. It’s critically important.
We have to be ever-vigilant, African American voters in Alabama. We have to show up at these public hearings. We have to show up and speak out about these maps that they’re looking at because it will directly impact us. That’s been my message.
I wanted to ask you about the Voting Rights Advancement Act. You worked very hard on that bill. You’ve reintroduced it many times now. You introduced it with John Lewis. Why do you think it wasn’t able to get over the filibuster in the last session? Were you disappointed to see that happen?.
I was very disappointed to see that the VRAA went to the Senate to die because it didn’t have the 60 votes and that two Democrats were the holdouts. I know we need 60, but it was really disheartening to see Democratic senators that wouldn’t even have a special carveout of the filibuster for voting rights.
The stakeholders and voting rights advocates have to continue to pressure our senators and to elect senators that will not be such institutionalists behind something like the filibuster. If you look at the history of why we even have a filibuster, it was because of a racially discriminatory reason. We’re just perpetuating further barriers to voting and have an opportunity to change it if only senators would vote for it.
I think we could have gotten 51 [senators] on the floor to vote for the VRAA. It’s just that we couldn’t get over the hump of the 60 to have it come up for debate.
If we can get the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, there’s no doubt in my mind that we will go a long way towards protecting minority voters across this nation, protecting their right to have an equal voice in our democracy.
I wanted to ask you what it’s like to represent Selma as the supreme court has chipped away at the landmark Voting Rights Act that’s so closely associated with what happened in your district in 1965. I also wanted to ask you what you think John Lewis would have said when the filibuster blocked the VRAA.
I had the honor of sitting next to John Lewis as we listened to oral argument in the Shelby decision. I can tell you it’s an honor of a lifetime to get the opportunity to represent your home district – I grew up in Selma, Alabama, a stone’s throw away from the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
I never in a million years would have thought that a little Black girl from Selma would represent Selma during the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march. Let alone, that my fight in Congress would be the same fight that John Lewis and those had on the Edmund Pettus bridge 58 years ago. That old battles have literally become new again and that this would be my cause. But you know what? What better congressional district to honor this legacy and to try to correct the wrongs of the Shelby decision, than the district that includes Selma and Montgomery. It’s an honor for me. It’s also a huge responsibility when you represent your home district and it’s something that I have never carried lightly. And it’s something I will continue to wear as a badge of honor – my representation of America’s civil rights and voting rights district.
