Supreme Court set to hear high-stakes case that could gut Voting Rights Act
This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 12 episode of “Velshi.” The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais. It is just the latest in a series of Republican-led attacks on the Voting Rights Act, which is known as one of the crown jewels of the Civil Rights Movement. The case challenges a congressional map that Louisiana adopted in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act. That map created two majority-Black districts out of a total of six districts in Louisiana. The previous map had only one majority-Black district, even though Black Louisianians make up roughly a third of the state’s population. In 2022, a group of 12 Black Louisiana voters came together and went to federal court, arguing that having just one majority-Black district violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 is the most powerful remaining provision in the Voting Rights Act. If the court rules their way, it could set a dangerous precedent and effectively cancel out Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Since the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder swept away other key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Section 2 is essentially the only thing keeping this crucial civil rights law alive. It outlaws election practices that deny or limit voting rights based on race. It applies to election practices, including racial gerrymandering and voter registration restrictions, and other hurdles, such as ballot access. Without Section 2, the Voting Rights Act is essentially moot. In that lawsuit, the Black voters argued that the congressional map with just one majority-Black district limited their voting power. The new map, with two majority-Black districts, was meant to fix that. But now, a group of self-described “non-African American” voters is trying to turn this argument on its head, making its own argument that the new map with two majority-Black districts is essentially violating its civil rights and counts as racial discrimination against non-Black voters. The group claims the map sorts voters primarily by race, in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, which says no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” It essentially guarantees states will apply laws equally to all people within their jurisdiction. The state of Louisiana and the Trump administration have backed that argument, asking the Supreme Court to declare the 2024 map unconstitutional. If the court rules their way, it could set a dangerous precedent and effectively cancel out Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, signaling that states no longer need to comply with the very provision designed to protect minority voters and ensure that American citizens have fair representation. According to a report by Fair Fight Action and the Black Voters Matter Fund, such a ruling could flip up to 19 congressional seats from blue to red in states across the country. Democratic representatives in Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi could all have their seats eliminated or consolidated. Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Florida might retain at least one Democratic seat, but their Democratic delegations would shrink. Congress would also become significantly less diverse. The report warns: “If legislators cannot consider race to remedy racial discrimination in voting, the Congressional Black Caucus could lose up to 30% of its members, while the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could lose up to 11% of its members.” The incredibly high stakes are not lost on those fighting to preserve the Voting Rights Act. As groups representing the state's voters noted in a supplemental brief for the Supreme Court, “Removing Section 2’s protections in Louisiana will not end discrimination there or lead to a race-blind society, but it may well lead to a severe decrease in minority representation at all levels of government in many parts of the country.”
