Policy / April 30, 2026
The Supreme Court’s decision is a cruel blow to our democracy. But our efforts to ensure that every American gets the representation and resources they deserve will not stop.
People march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 61st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Selma, Alabama.(Mike Stewart/AP) Last month, I participated in the annual march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama — the place where, 61 years earlier, on Bloody Sunday, John Lewis and other giants of the civil rights movement endured the crushing of batons and the burns of tear gas to defend their right to vote.
Later, as I stood in the pulpit of Selma’s Brown Chapel, I shared the weight of my ancestors’ sacred struggle. These Americans fought for their fair share of our democracy, and especially for their fair share of the resources and rights that democracy grants to those who are rightly represented in government. In return, they faced violence, racism, and countless other indignities.
The decision rendered yesterday by the Supreme Court Louisiana v. Callais has dishonored the heritage of these proud Americans and the hard-won rights they earned, by eroding our ability to challenge discrimination at the voting booths. The Court’s slow but steady dismantling of the Civil Rights Act and now the Voting Rights Act is disenfranchising millions of Americans and undermining the major achievements of the civil rights movement.
But make no mistake: This institutional injustice will not deter our efforts to ensure that every American has the representation and resources they deserve. Despite the difficulties faced by the heroes of the civil rights movement, they continued to march. Us too. We cannot afford not to.
I carry the mantle of their sacrifice on behalf of New Yorkers and fight every day to preserve the fairness and integrity of our elections. I do this not to promote some vague ideal of American democracy, but because I know from experience that voting is the central mechanism by which Americans can solve the affordability and quality of life problems they encounter every day.
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I first ran for office because my neighbors in Brooklyn felt like they had been left out of opportunity. They were looking for someone to fight for them, to make sure their interests were part of the conversation. From now on, I will work every day to be that person for New Yorkers from Brooklyn to Buffalo, from Binghamton to Bridgehampton.
This is why I continue our ancestors’ fight for our democracy – because I know firsthand that our government cannot meet the needs of every New Yorker or American if only some of our communities are represented in the halls of power.
Every day, my office works hard to give voters the tools they need to fully participate in our state’s elections. We provide accessible, multilingual advice on registration, as well as postal, advance and postal voting. We operate an Election Protection Hotline during every primary and general election, so that New Yorkers have a direct way to notify us if there are risks to the integrity of our system. My office holds bad actors accountable, pursuing schemers who target Black voters and stopping coordinated efforts to suppress turnout. And as new threats emerge, we respond, for example by issuing the first national guidelines to protect against AI-generated election disinformation.
Over the past year, the federal government has attempted to exert total control over how we vote, while attempting to block access to the public funding that American families need to survive. Time and time again we stopped them.
The suppression of the right to vote is not new. This is not short-sighted either. Talking heads denounce electoral fraud, even if it remains extremely rare. They push unconstitutional legislation like the SAVE America Act to amass their own power, while the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act goes unread by leaders at the Capitol.
Meanwhile, Americans are experiencing competing crises that our federal government has no plan to respond to. How do the people in this administration provide for the single mother who can barely feed her babies? How do they serve our veterans who, after cuts in federal funding, struggle to access the health care to which their sacrifice entitles them? How can they raise young people who come of age in an impossible job market? Do they worry, as I do, about late-night cooking reports among working parents, struggling to make ends meet in a brutal economy, while this administration strikes sweetheart tax deals with billionaires?
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Some commentators and pundits have decided that voters don’t care about the abstract “fight for democracy.” They tell us we should abandon efforts to align ourselves with this ideal because it is so far removed from the everyday experience of Americans. Often, they cite the president’s victory in 2024 as an affirmation of these claims.
I respectfully disagree. It may be true that many in our country ignore Washington politicians as they glorify the majesty of the electoral system that brought them to power. But so far, our leaders have failed to link the defense of democracy to the fruits it can bring to communities across the country.
This is what we do in New York. We make it clear that being able to vote for leaders who are at the center of working people means being able to afford quality health care, save money for college, keep food on the table, keep our communities safe, and create good-paying union jobs. We prove through our policy that voting directly translates into investment in communities.
As the midterm elections approach and chaos brews around the world, I hope that all of us will take up the banner that the courageous protesters in Selma raised 61 years ago. They marched to ensure equal participation in our democracy and, with it, their fair share of the resources and representation that our democracy has always promised. Now it’s our turn to make sure we keep our promises.
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Letitia James Letitia James is the 67th Attorney General of the State of New York.
