Each week on The Term, Supreme Court reporter Jimmy Hoover and co-host Natalie Rodriguez break down all the high court action.
This week, the team recaps the action-packed final week of the 2020-2021 term, with a number of eyebrow-raising orders and opinions. Perhaps the most notable came on Thursday morning, when a 6-3 majority upheld a pair of Arizona voting restrictions that Democrats claimed violated Section 2 of the VRA prohibiting ballot measures that restrict minority voting.
In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said not all laws that have a disparate impact on minority voters are in violation of Section 2, and that courts need to look at the "totality of the circumstances" to determine whether minority voters were denied an "equal opportunity" to participate in an election.
In a dissent joined by her fellow Democratic appointees, Justice Elena Kagan called the decision "tragic" and part of the court's assault on the VRA going back to Shelby County, where the conservatives struck down Section 5 of the law requiring states with a history of voting discrimination to obtain preclearance from the federal government before making changes to their voting laws.
Also this week, Natalie talks through Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, where the same 6-3 majority invalidated a California law requiring charities to disclose information about their donors.
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