Demand Justice is airing the ad in the Washington, D.C., market beginning Tuesday, the same day the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in two Arizona voting rights cases that progressives fear will further undermine the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“John Lewis marched and bled so the Voting Rights Act could become law,” the ad’s narrator says. “But now [Chief Justice] John Roberts and his Supreme Court are set to destroy his legacy.”
"In 1965, opponents of voting rights swung clubs on a bridge in Selma," the narrator continues. "Today, they sit on the highest court."
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The ad seems as though it may be designed to provoke, as there are only "five figures" behind it, according to the group. Roberts has been criticized for his past decisions on voting rights, but rarely with such stark analogies.
Brian Fallon, Demand Justice’s executive director, said the group is airing the ad for two reasons. The first “is to bring attention to this case and maybe shame Roberts and at least one other conservative out of gutting what remains of the Voting Rights Act” as Republican lawmakers in several states seek to make it harder to vote, he noted in an interview.
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The second is to pressure Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced last year after Lewis' death. The bill was co-sponsored by the entire Democratic caucus as well as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) but never made it out of committee.
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The legislation would restore Voting Rights Act protections dismantled by the Supreme Court in an earlier case, Shelby County v. Holder. Pushing for its passage is also an implicit endorsement of scrapping the filibuster, Fallon said, since “any meaningful push to pass the John Lewis Act” would require doing so.
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Demand Justice has been known to use aggressive tactics previously.
The group ran ads while Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) was running for reelection in 2019 criticizing him for voting for some of Trump’s judicial nominees — which Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the new Senate Judiciary chair, called "way out of line" at the time.
Fallon defended the ads in 2019, arguing that Coons shouldn't be worried about them if he was proud of his record.
The new ad also urges Congress to “reform the Supreme Court” — a reference to progressive proposals to add more seats to the court, create term limits and adopt other changes.
The Biden administration is currently working to set up a bipartisan commission to study such reforms, which President Joe Biden pledged to do during the campaign.
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