‘Earthquake’: Supreme Court limits Voting Rights Act in setback for black Democrats, strengthening GOP

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday imposed sharp restrictions on part of the Voting Rights Act that forced states to draw voting districts to help elect black or Latino representatives to Congress as well as state and local councils.

In a 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Calais, the Court ruled that the creation of these majority-minority districts would amount to racial discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In evaluating what the Voting Rights Act requires, “we begin with the general rule that the Constitution never permits the federal government or a state to discriminate on the basis of race,” Justice Samuel Alito Jr. wrote for the court.

Alito said states may draw electoral districts for partisan gain, but they may not use race as a basis for redistricting.

The ruling in the Louisiana case appears to clear the way for Republican-led states across the South to redraw their electoral maps and eliminate voting districts that favor black or Latino candidates for Congress, state legislatures and county boards.

“It’s hard to overstate how big of an earthquake this will be on American politics,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, adding that the decision makes the Voting Rights Act “a much weaker, and perhaps even more powerless, law.”

Hasen said it is unclear how the decision will affect the November election because early voting has already begun in many states and primaries have already been held.

The long-term consequences of the ruling on minority representation in Congress, state legislatures and local government will “certainly” be felt in 2028, Hasen said.

Republican leaders in Southern states have already indicated they intend to move quickly to redraw congressional maps in the wake of the ruling.

Alabama Atty. Gen. Steve Marshall said the state “will work as quickly as possible” to ensure its congressional maps “reflect the will of the people, not racial quotas prohibited by the Constitution.” Marshall called the decision an acknowledgment of how much the South has changed since the civil rights era.

“The court rightly recognized that the South has made extraordinary progress, and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect current reality,” he said in a statement.

Florida was already moving ahead of the ruling. But Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrated the decision and said it was more reason for state lawmakers to redraw congressional maps, in a way that could give Republicans up to four additional seats in Congress.

The proposed congressional maps, drawn by DeSantis’ office, were first revealed to Fox News on Monday. On Wednesday, both chambers approved the maps and prepared them for DeSantis’ final approval.

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves has already called lawmakers into a special session at the end of May in anticipation of the court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act. In a post on X, Reeves emphasized the ideological underpinnings of the ruling’s potential ramifications.

“First Dobbs. Now Calais. Only Mississippi and Louisiana are here saving our country!” Reeves wrote.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) speaks at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol after the Supreme Court ruling.

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

The dispute was over how to ensure equal representation for black and Latino citizens.

About a third of Louisiana’s voters are black, but the state is seeking an electoral map that elects white Republicans for five of its six seats in the House of Representatives.

Lower courts said the map violated the Voting Rights Act because it deprived black residents of fair representation.

The state had one majority black district, in New Orleans.

Two years ago, the justices upheld the creation of a second, majority-black district extending from Shreveport to Baton Rouge on the grounds that it was required by law.

State Republican leaders appealed and argued that race was the motivating factor in drawing the 2nd District.

Alito and conservatives agreed, calling that district an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

The three liberals objected. Justice Elena Kagan said the consequences of the ruling “are likely to be far-reaching and serious,” adding that it would allow “the dilution of racist voices in their most classic forms.”

She said the decision means that “the state can, without legal consequences, systematically dilute the voting power of minority citizens. Of course, the majority today does not declare its position in this way. Its opinion is understated, even sanitized.”

But she said states across the South may draw electoral districts that deny black voters equal representation. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.

The decision was the latest example of a partisan political dispute in which the court’s six Republican appointees voted in favor of the Republican state plan, while the three Democratic appointees dissented.

The ruling is likely to have its greatest impact in Southern states, where white Republicans control and black Democrats are in the minority.

The court’s split over redistricting resembles the long dispute over affirmative action.

For decades, university officials have said they need to consider applicants’ race to achieve diversity and equal representation.

But in 2023, the court by a 6-3 vote struck down affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina and ruled that race could not be used to judge applicants.

The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 succeeded in paving the way for black citizens to register and vote throughout the South, but it took longer for black candidates to win elections.

The dispute was highlighted in the 1980 case of the city of Mobile, Ala., whose three commissioners were elected to six-year terms, and each administered countywide jurisdiction.

Although a third of the district’s voters were black, white candidates always won.

The Supreme Court upheld this arrangement as legal and constitutional. In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall said that black residents were left with the right to cast meaningless votes.

In response, Congress amended the Voting Rights Act in 1982 to stipulate that states must give minorities the opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.

Four years later, the Supreme Court interpreted this to mean that states had a duty to draw voting districts that would elect a black or Latino candidate if those minorities had a large enough number of voters in a given district.

In recent years, conservatives on the court, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, have expressed anger at the rule on the grounds that it sometimes requires states to use race as a factor in drawing electoral districts.

Alito’s opinion adopted this view and said that states are not obligated or permitted to use race as a basis for drawing districts.

Hours after the ruling was issued, President Trump met with reporters in the Oval Office and said that he had not yet seen the decision. However, he was visibly excited when a reporter explained that the decision favored Republicans.

“I love him!” He said. “This is very good.”

Former President Obama said in a statement that the court’s decision “effectively destroys a fundamental pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities — as long as they do so under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than outright racial bias.”

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Los Angeles also denounced the decision.

“The Supreme Court’s decision blesses racial bias in gerrymandering and dismantles legal protections for minority voters,” said Nina Perales, the group’s vice president for litigation. It “openly calls on states to weaken the voting power of minorities, and undermines our democracy.”

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