The US Supreme Court is poised to deal a devastating blow to the Voting Rights Act, a cornerstone of American democracy. This move, if successful, will effectively dismantle the last remaining section of the Act, Section 2, which empowers the federal government to protect voters from racial gerrymandering and ensure equal political representation for Black Americans.
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, stems from a dispute over congressional districting maps in Louisiana. After the 2020 census revealed a population that was approximately one-third Black, the state initially proposed maps with only one majority-Black district, ignoring seven more racially fair options. Voters challenged this, and federal courts ordered Louisiana to comply with the Voting Rights Act by creating maps that reflected the Black population's share and gave them an equal opportunity to elect their representatives.
However, a group of individuals identifying as "non-African-American voters" has now sued to overturn these racially proportionate maps. They argue that enforcing the Voting Rights Act violates their rights under the 14th and 15th Amendments, claiming that the maps designed to remedy racial discrimination against Black people constitute racial discrimination against non-Black individuals. The Supreme Court appears inclined to agree with this argument, setting the stage for a controversial decision.
If the Court rules in favor of the "non-African-American" voters, it will effectively nullify the Voting Rights Act, a landmark achievement of the civil rights movement. This decision would continue a pattern set by Chief Justice John Roberts, who has led the Court in dismantling the Act over the past decade. In the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder, the Court struck down much of Section 5, which required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to seek federal approval for changes to their voting laws.
Since then, the Court has consistently narrowed the conditions under which voting rights claims can be brought and expanded states' ability to make voting laws that were previously considered discriminatory. Chief Justice Roberts argued that racial animus and inequality had diminished to the point where such a regime was unnecessary and even violated states' rights. The consequences of this decision were stark, as the gap between Black and white voter participation rates widened significantly, particularly in districts previously subject to Section 5's preclearance regime.
During the oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, Justices Kavanaugh and Alito asserted that the racial gerrymander was justified if it was intended as a partisan gerrymander, prioritizing lawmakers' stated intentions over the racially discriminatory impact of the gerrymander. This stance contradicts previous Supreme Court precedent and ample evidence from the congressional record, which has established that discriminatory impact, not intent, is sufficient to constitute illegal racial discrimination.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the Court's most passionate advocate for the Reconstruction Amendments and the legacy of the civil rights movement, expressed her frustration with this line of argument. She emphasized that the remedies proposed were tied to race because race was the initial problem, but her colleagues seemed disinclined to listen.
The case reflects a broader trend under the Roberts Court: a hostility to racial justice claims brought by minorities and a willingness to twist civil rights law and the Reconstruction Amendments to entrench historical hierarchies of race and gender rather than challenge them. Louisiana's attorney general, who has switched sides since the case was initially argued, claimed that assuming Black voters would vote differently than white voters would be an unconstitutional imposition of a racial stereotype. This argument, a facile fiction, elicited exasperation from Justice Kagan.
Chief Justice Roberts has long opposed practices aimed at remedying historical and ongoing racial discrimination, advocating for facially race-blind policies in voting rights enforcement and college admissions, regardless of their discriminatory impact on Black Americans. His philosophy, as he once memorably put it, is that "the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," essentially arguing that ignoring racism is the solution to racism.
Under this logic, if the Court rules in Louisiana's favor, it will effectively legalize racial gerrymandering of congressional districts to minimize and dilute Black voter power. At the same time, using race to redistrict in a way that restores Black voter power will remain illegal.
This fanciful and motivated reasoning by Roberts and his colleagues has led them to the conclusion that efforts to secure Black Americans' voting rights and equality violate the very constitutional amendments intended to guarantee those rights. The Voting Rights Act does not contradict the 15th Amendment; it enforces it, and its enforcement has been crucial to the United States' claim to being a real democracy. To argue otherwise is not just bad reasoning; it is bad faith. And unfortunately, bad faith increasingly seems to be the operating principle of the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court rules as expected, a decision is likely to come down in June 2026, just months before the November midterm elections. The resulting racial gerrymanders are projected to give Republicans an additional 19 House seats. This outcome would have profound implications for American democracy and the representation of Black voters.
