The Supreme Court Just Struck Down a Key Pillar of the Voting Rights Act
As the redistricting war heats up, Republicans have been given a free pass to disenfranchise racial minorities
Photo by Tim Mossholderon on Unsplash (modified)
The United States Supreme Court dealt a major blow to civil rights and fair elections last Wednesday as the conservative majority voted to repeal a core principle of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Before the ruling, Section 2 of the law prohibited states from adopting any voting procedure “that results in the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group.”
For the past 60 years, this meant that while partisan gerrymandering technically remained legal, state legislatures could not draw congressional districts with the explicit intention of disenfranchising people of color. Ultimately, minority groups were required to have at least some influence in elections to roughly match statewide demographics.
In Louisiana, for example, an earlier case found that lawmakers had violated this principle by suppressing the influence of Black voters, who were not given enough representation relative to their population.
Despite making up around one third of the state’s electorate, Black voters only held a majority in one out of six of Louisiana’s congressional districts. Therefore, to comply with the law, the state legislature was compelled to pass revised maps that added a second majority-Black district.
Last week, however, the Supreme Court struck down those maps, ruling that lawmakers relied too heavily on race in their decision-making. This essentially nullifies the Voting Rights Act as it applies to redistricting, allowing Republican states to systematically weaken the voting power of minority groups without fear of litigation, as long as they at least pretend not to have a racial motive.
The court’s decision “effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities,” Former President Obama warned on social media.
“It serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach, he added.
The impact of this decision on the upcoming midterm elections is unmistakable.
As Republicans desperately try to rig the game to make up for the president’s plummeting approval rating, the Supreme Court’s ruling effectively allows red state legislatures to give their party an advantage using any means necessary. Erasing the voting power of people of color, unfortunately, is now on the table, just as it was during the darkest days of Jim Crow segregation.
For that matter, liberal Justice Elena Kagan argued in her dissent that the court’s decision marks the final demolition of the Voting Rights Act. “I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity,” she wrote.
“I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”
Given the clear and present danger this ruling poses for the fairness of elections, top Democrats are urging their party to respond in kind by drawing Republicans out of blue states.
“If they’re going to redraw and gerrymander every one of their states, then unfortunately, we have to provide balance to that until we get to the day where we can all finally agree to put this behind us and pass nonpartisan gerrymandering federally,” argued Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
So far, California and Virginia have already approved new maps to counteract Trump-ordered election rigging, and although partisan redistricting is inherently antithetical to free and fair elections, it’s important to note that voters were given the final say in those states. Meanwhile, red state legislatures are aggressively disenfranchising liberals and racial minorities without consulting anyone besides the president.
“While Democrats have given voters the choice whether or not to respond to Donald Trump’s mid-decade gerrymandering scheme at the ballot box, Republicans are drawing maps behind closed doors in the dead of the night,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in response to Trump’s efforts to rig the midterms.
And while the Supreme Court’s ruling is certainly a setback, it’s also a clear justification for voters to mobilize in record numbers this November. Republicans have shown their cards, and their vision for America is unmistakably racist and authoritarian. Now, it’s up to us to reject it in the strongest possible terms.
“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome,” Former President Obama reminds us. “But that only happens if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers — not just in the upcoming midterms or in high-profile races, but in every election and every level.”
This story was originally published on Substack
