Here’s a transcript of a bit of my Slate Amicus podcast conversation with Dahlia Lithwick:

Can you just explain to us what happens if Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is no longer the mechanism by which voters can remedy racially discriminatory voting practices?

It would be an earthquake in American politics, like nothing we’ve seen before, because Section 2 applies nationwide, it applies to congressional districts, it applies to city council races, it applies to state legislative districts. Any place where legislative lines are drawn and white people and minority voters prefer different candidates—and that’s not just in the South, that’s in parts of California, that’s in places all over the country—Section 2 would no longer require race-conscious districting, and it would mean that our legislative bodies will be less diverse. They will be whiter. Now some of the people who’ve been elected before as incumbents, they’d still be able to get elected, but you’re going to see a bunch of redistricting in places where you could draw more Republican seats and squeeze out seats. Think about some of the most prominent Black members of Congress, the most prominent Latino members of state legislatures; some of these people would no longer be able to get elected. It would be huge. So I can’t even tell you what an effect Section 2 has had in assuring fair minority representation in this country, and it would be gone.