Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.[7][8] It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections.[7] Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965 (see related Civil Rights Act of 1964; undermined in 2013 by ShelbyCounty v Holder)

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2025 (H.R. 14) is proposed voting rights legislation named after civil rights activist John Lewis. The bill would restore and strengthen parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, most notably its requirement for states and jurisdictions with a history of voting rights violations to seek federal approval before enacting certain changes to their voting laws.[1] The bill was written in response to the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, which struck down the system that was used to determine which jurisdictions were subject to that requirement.[2][3] On August 24, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill by a margin of 219–212.[4] On November 3, 2021, the bill failed to pass the Senate after falling short of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture.[5] A second attempt to pass it on January 19, 2022, as part of a combined bill with the Freedom to Vote Act, also failed. Again falling short of the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture, the bill then failed to pass a vote to be exempted from Senate filibuster rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_Voting_Rights_Act