Supreme Court seems open to limiting key section of Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court seemed open Wednesday to further limiting the use of race in drawing legislative maps, a move that could undermine the last major pillar of the Voting Rights Act, which has bolstered the power of minority voters and candidates for more than half a century and is widely considered one of the most significant laws of the civil rights era.
The court’s conservative majority appeared sympathetic to arguments by attorneys for Louisiana and the Trump administration who said race played too large a role in the decision to create a second majority-Black congressional district in the state, in violation of the Constitution’s provision that all people must be treated equally. Black voters had sued, claiming their voting power had been diluted by a previous map.
Several of the conservative justices appeared to be searching for ways to cap how and when states consider race as they redistrict, which could have a large impact on elections. At issue is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states to fashion legislative districts under certain circumstances to ensure Black and other minority voters have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
A ruling that eliminates or severely cuts back Section 2 would most likely lead to a decline in the number of minorities holding public office. It would also touch off a scramble to redraw electoral maps across the country.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the court’s recent rulings had held that “race-based remedies are permissible, but they should not be indefinite” and at several points in the two-and-a-half-hour argument of the case appeared focused on what that time limit should be. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. chimed in at another point to ask “What’s the proper size?” in talking about the role race should play in drawing voting maps.
Those two justices provided the key votes for a decision two years ago to uphold a major part of the Voting Rights Act. Their comments this time indicated openness to changing how the law works to control redistricting decisions but left unclear how far they might go in trimming Section 2.
The court’s three liberals sharply questioned lawyers for Louisiana and the Trump administration and were deeply skeptical of changes to the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor tartly responded to a Trump administration attorney that their position amounted to “bottom line … just get rid of Section 2.”
Justice Elena Kagan asked an attorney for Black voters in Louisiana what impact a demise of Section 2 would have.
“The results would be pretty catastrophic,” Janai Nelson bluntly responded.
“We only have the diversity we see across the South because of litigation” under the voting rights law, Nelson said, adding that it had been “crucial to diversifying leadership” in Louisiana and other states.
Attorneys for the Trump administration and Louisiana disputed that assessment, noting that purely partisan reasons exist for keeping majority-minority districts. If Black voters were distributed across currently majority-White districts, Republican incumbents could be endangered, they noted.
Hashim M. Mooppan, representing the Trump administration, told the justices that states should be free to make those sorts of partisan decisions even if their choices also have a racial impact.
Roughly a dozen “majority-minority” districts exist across the South and account for roughly 1 in 4 of the Black representatives in Congress. Democrats fear that if the Voting Rights Act is weakened, Republican-controlled legislatures would wipe out those districts.
Wednesday’s session was an uncommon reargument of the case, which the justices first heard last term.
In August, the justices told the parties that they should address the question of whether Section 2 violated the 14th and 15th amendments, which were passed after the Civil War to guarantee Black people citizenship, equal treatment and the right to vote.
The case arrives at a moment when President Donald Trump has pushed Republican states to redraw their congressional maps to try to shore up conservatives’ slim House majority. Democrats in California and other states are considering redistricting to counter that plan.
Because a large majority of Black voters choose Democratic candidates, a decision that reduces those voters’ political clout would probably strengthen Republicans. It’s unclear, however, if a decision in the current case would come in time to affect next year’s midterm congressional elections.
States typically have to thread a needle when creating voting maps. The Voting Rights Act allows states to consider race when drawing districts to redress past racial discrimination and requires that minority voters have a realistic opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. Maps drawn explicitly along racial lines, however, violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the 15th Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting practices, the Supreme Court has said in previous decisions.
The Louisiana case has followed an especially circuitous path, which illustrates how complicated complying with those commands can be.
In 2022, Black voters and civil rights groups sued Louisiana under Section 2, saying the state had diluted their voting power by creating a new congressional map that had only one Black-majority district out of six. African Americans make up a third of the state’s population.
A federal judge ruled for the plaintiffs and ordered the state to craft a new map with a second Black-majority district. After additional legal wrangling, the Louisiana legislature drew such a map in 2024.
The new map they approved, drawn in part to protect the seats of powerful Republican incumbents, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, created a Black-majority district that snaked across the state from Baton Rouge to Shreveport.
A group of self-described “non-Black voter[s]” then sued to block the new map. They argued it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that violated the Equal Protection Clause. A district court panel ruled for the non-Black plaintiffs and put a hold on the redrawn map.
The Supreme Court eventually allowed the map with two Black-majority districts to go into effect for the 2024 congressional election. Voters selected Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, for the new seat.
The non-Black voters brought their case back to the Supreme Court, which initially heard it last term. In June, however, the justices decided to put off ruling and said they would hear additional arguments.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
