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What kind of South do we want? The Voting Rights Act was a key engine of Southern progress, leveling the political playing field but also improving the South's image and economic success. If conservatives push too hard, it may help tilt the electorate in ways that helps score some quick political victories. In the short term, these attacks could be a spark to mobilize African-American, Asian-American, Latino, young and urban voters to head to the polls in 2014.

These regressive trends can be turned around. But that will require the mobilization of an expansive political movement, sufficiently inclusive to attract Hispanics, low-income white southerners and African-Americans.

"It’s time we made it clear once and for all: every citizen in the United States has a fundamental right to vote."- Rep.Keith Ellison, D-MN

"It no longer surprises me when extremist state legislators try to restrict our voting rights. I don't like it and we fight against it, but I'm no longer surprised by it." "What surprises and outrages me is that yesterday a Supreme Court Justice said that the protection of the right to vote is a 'perpetuation of racial entitlement.'" Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO, NAACP

The US Supreme Court's upcoming decision on the Voting Rights Act could let discriminatory laws make a comeback.

This week the Supreme Court will hear one of the most important cases in our generation, Shelby County v. Holder. At issue is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires all or parts of 16 “covered” states with long histories and contemporary records of voting discrimination to seek approval from the federal government for voting changes.