US Supreme Court limits Voting Rights Act’s race-based redistricting rules
The Supreme Court loosened a provision of the Voting Rights Act that restricted redrawing congressional districts on the basis of race. The decision could affect states’ future attempts to redistrict, which Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed for last fall to help Democrats retake control of Congress in November’s midterms.
In a 6-3 decision issued Wednesday, the court threw out Louisiana’s voting map on the basis that it unfairly favored Black voters at the expense of white ones. Previously, Section 2 of the Civil Rights-era Voting Rights Act of 1965 had protected minority voters from discrimination.
“Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the state’s use of race in (redistricting), and that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” the opinion read.
The court’s three Democrats disagreed. Justice Elena Kagan said in her dissenting opinion that Black residents’ votes, were “by every practical measure, wasted.”
“Under the court’s new view of Section 2, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” she wrote.
Wednesday’s case derived from a legal challenge from a group of white voters, some of whom didn’t know they were named in litigation, who said Louisiana legislators’ creation of two minority-majority voting districts following the 2020 census disenfranchised them.
It’s uncertain how the decision will impact the outcome of the 2026 midterms — which Newsom pushed as the Democrats’ best bet for challenging President Donald Trump’s immigration raids and gutting of state funds.
California, via Proposition 50, was one of the first states to redraw their own congressional districts last fall, after Trump urged Republican states to gerrymander and ensure the GOP held on to its razor-thin congressional majority.
Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s ruling. He said in a statement on X that the decision “continues to gut the Voting Rights Act and virtal protections for our democracy.”
“California will not sit back, we will continue to uphold what makes us American, and take action — over and over again — to safeguard our democracy for the generations to come,” Newsom said.
Virginia is the latest Democratic state to approve its own redistricted maps last week, though it now faces legal challenges in that state’s Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the Florida House advanced its own newly drawn maps.
