But in the spring of 2013, as North Carolina Republicans were working on their bill, a court case - called Shelby v. Holder - was being argued before the Supreme Court that threatened the very existence of Section 5.



On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court issued their ruling on the case, nullifying Section 5. Explaining the court's 5-to-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote that "history did not end in 1965" when the Voting Rights Act was passed. In the decades since then, he said, "voting tests were abolished, disparities in voter registration and turnout due to race were erased, and African-Americans attained political office in record numbers."



In North Carolina, within hours of the court ruling, Apodaca told local reporters, "Now we can go with the full bill." With the "legal headache" of Section 5 out of the way, he said a more extensive "omnibus" bill would soon be introduced in the Senate.



Weeks later, at 9 p.m. on a Monday, five days before the end of the legislative session, Republican lawmakers emailed out their new version of HB 589.



Democrat state Sen. Josh Stein remembers getting the email while sitting at his kitchen table that night, already dressed for bed. "My jaw just hit the table."



The bill had grown from 16 pages to 57, tacking on more than 50 new parts. The new bill shortened early voting by half, cutting one of the Sundays when black churches held their "Souls to Polls" drives. It eliminated same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting.



It also proposed changes that, to Stein and other opponents, made no sense unless you were purposely trying to discourage voting. For example, it canceled an existing rule that let 16- and 17-year-old high schoolers to pre-register to vote in civics classes or when they got driver's licenses. And it took away counties' ability to extend poll hours on Election Day during extraordinary circumstances such as long lines.



On the next day, a hearing on the bill was packed. Republicans in charge began by giving the crowd one white piece of paper with 10 lines on it. Only 10 people would be given the chance to talk, they explained, with just two minutes each. That total of 20 minutes, it later turned out, would be the only public testimony Republicans allowed on the revised bill.



During the hearing, Stein read into the legislative record studies and statistics to show the bill would disproportionately hurt African-American, minority and younger voters. The idea, he said, was to show Republicans knew exactly what they were doing and lay the groundwork for the legal battle ahead.



On the Senate side, Republican state Sen. Bob Rucho was tasked with defending the bill. "I don't agree with your premise," he told Stein and other critics, "and secondly, I don't look at race as who's going to vote. What we're trying to do is make sure that we have an equal opportunity for every single person to vote, and it's not designed on race in any manner."



In the space of three days, Republicans managed to get HB 589 approved by the Senate Rules Committee, passed in a Senate floor vote and sent back to the House for a final vote on the second-to-last day of the legislative session.



A federal court judge would later write, "Neither this legislature - nor, as far as we can tell, any other legislature in the country - has ever done so much, so fast, to restrict [voting] access."



On July 25, 2013, the bill passed the House, 73 to 41. Everyone who voted for the law was a white Republican, and every black member of the legislature voted against it. As the final vote was cast, Democratic representatives all stood up, held hands and bowed their heads in prayer.



Rick Glazier, a white Democratic representative at the time, was on the House floor with Michaux, the black legislator who helped pass many of the voting-access laws being dismantled by HB 589. "I'll never forget the look on his face. To see the thing you had fought for your whole career destroyed in a matter of days," Glazier said. "He had tears in his eyes."



Lewis said he deeply resented critics who have painted the bill and its supporters as racist. "When Democrats were in power, I may not have agreed with them, but I never questioned them personally or tried to impugn their reputations," he said.



On the day McCrory signed HB 589 into law, the state's NAACP chapter sued over the voter ID portion of the bill, while the League of Women Voters and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice challenged its other parts like cutting early voting, same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting. National lawyers from groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Advancement Project stepped in to help. The Justice Department later joined as well.