He Supreme Court dealt another blow to voting rights Wednesday by ruling that a Louisiana congressional map drawn to protect minority voters was an unconstitutional form of racial gerrymandering. The map had been drawn in accordance with a key provision of the Voting Rights Law or 1965.
The 6-3 ruling was along ideological lines, with the court’s six conservatives ruling against the state’s congressional map. The decision limits acceptable interpretations of Section 2, the provision of landmark civil rights legislation that prevents states from using the redistricting process to discriminate against voters based on race.
in court majority opinionJustice Samuel Alito wrote that Section 2 “imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to give minority voters fewer opportunities because of their race,” and that an “adequate” understanding of the statute “does not interfere with the States’ prerogative to draw districts based on nonracial factors, even to achieve partisan advantage.”
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissenting opinion, stating that the majority’s decision “renders Section 2 virtually a dead letter.”
“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute the voting power of minority citizens,” Kagan added, “Without a basis in the text of Section 2 or the Constitution, the majority formulates new evidentiary requirements for plaintiffs alleging vote dilution. Such lawsuits, aimed at ‘separating race from politics,’ ante, at 25, take advantage of two features of modern political life: that identity Racial bias and partisan preference are often linked and that politicians have free rein to adopt partisan manipulators.”
The immediate impact of the decision is unclear beyond Louisiana, which will have to redraw its congressional map, but it could lead Republicans to try to redraw districts with predominant minority populations.
“Today’s decision is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act and a license for corrupt politicians who want to manipulate the system by silencing entire communities,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote in a statement. “The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, betrayed America, and betrayed our democracy. This ruling is a major setback for our nation and threatens to erode the hard-won victories we have fought, bled, and died for.”
This is breaking news and will be updated.
