( CNN ) -- In an earthshaking 1965 speech to Congress and to the nation , President Lyndon Johnson spoke directly to the sinister forces that had restricted black Americans ' right to vote across the South -- laying out the goals of the Voting Rights Act in the form of a command to this shameful cabal . `` Open your polling places to all your people . Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin . Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land , '' Johnson thundered . `` There is no constitutional issue here . The command of the Constitution is plain . '' The speech stirred the country , moved the Rev . Martin Luther King Jr. to tears and secured this essential law 's passage . Today , if President Barack Obama wants to save the Voting Rights Act following Tuesday 's shameful Supreme Court ruling , then he faces an even bigger challenge than Johnson did : He 's got to convince a much more hostile Congress that the act is worth saving . Hanging in the balance is the very foundation of American civil rights law . On Tuesday , nearly 50 years after Johnson 's historic speech , the five conservative members of the Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in a single stroke . Why ? According to the majority opinion , apparently it 's because the discriminatory anti-voter rules the act prohibits are n't as much of a problem as they were before the law was passed . If you 're trying to think up a way to illustrate how completely nuts that is , do n't worry , because Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg already put it best in her dissent . Striking down this essential part of the act , Ginsburg wrote , `` is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet . '' Opinion : How segregation got busted . Of course , Johnson was right in 1965 , and he 's just as right today . These protections are vital and necessary . There is no right more sacrosanct to the very foundations of our nation than the right to vote , and threats to equal voting loom every time we turn a blind eye . Constant vigilance is required to safeguard it , and for half a century the Voting Rights Act was a watchful guardian . But now that Section 5 's `` pre-clearance '' formula has been made irrelevant , it falls to Congress to fix it . Do n't expect the conservative-controlled House of Representatives to jump at the chance though . Just last year , during the 2012 election cycle , Republican elected officials in states across the country pushed deeply hostile voter ID laws that disproportionately limit minority voters . Sometimes , the Republicans were even explicit that the purpose of these laws was to put victories in the `` R '' column . And all that took place with a full and complete Voting Rights Act still on the books . Veterans of forgotten voting war count the cost . Now it 's up to Obama to make a new case for a new Voting Rights Act . Of course , there 's nothing partisan about equality in the ballot box . The act 's great virtue is that it barred discrimination no matter which way it was directed . It was an equal opportunity shield from injustice -- protecting you no matter who you voted for or what you looked like . It is a crying shame that the Supreme Court left a key part of Johnson 's legacy in tatters . But today , Obama -- and every fair-minded American -- should look to the spirit of Johnson and King and pass a new Voting Rights Act that will stand the test of time . We ca n't wait . Election Day is just around the corner . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Brazile .
Donna Brazile : LBJ 's 1965 speech enjoined Southerners to support blacks ' right to vote . She says the Supreme Court , in a stroke , has eviscerated the Voting Rights Act . Brazile : President Obama must convince polarized Congress to save the act by fixing it . Voter ID laws show threats to rights remain , and Congress must pass new act , she says .