Antidemocratic

In 1981 a young Harvard-trained lawyer joined the Reagan administration's Department of Justice and took up a cause that had been building in Republican circles for more than a decade: dismantling the Voting Rights Act, one of the defining laws of the twentieth century. His name was John Roberts.

Thirty-odd years later, in 2013, Roberts was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and he wrote the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. The ruling rested on the idea that racism was a thing of the past, and it immediately encouraged antidemocratic voting laws across the country. According to the book, no modern court decision has done more to hand elections to Republicans.

Investigative reporter David Daley traces what he describes as a fifty-year Republican campaign to end the Voting Rights Act and to promote minority rule in the party's favor. His account runs from Reagan's Justice Department to the Federalist Society to the wealthy Republican donors who today fund restrictive voting laws. Drawing on extensive reporting and research, he links Shelby to a well-funded, closely coordinated conservative effort to weaken the ballot-box power of minority voters and Democrats, an effort he says grows stronger with each election cycle.

Daley also argues that Roberts and his conservative allies have helped make extreme partisan gerrymandering the law of the land, while fringe conservative theories about elections work their way into the foundations of American democracy. His conclusion is that Shelby marked the end of the Voting Rights Act and also the beginning of something far darker.