In a 6-3 decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court narrowed the ability of states to draw legislative districts based on race. The ruling limited a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in a move that could allow some Republican-controlled states to draw more favorable U.S. House maps for the GOP.
The case specifically centered on Louisiana’s 2024 U.S. House map, which had been redrawn to add a second majority-black district. The Court said that the new map constituted an unlawful racial gerrymander.
“Correctly understood, Section 2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Compliance with Section 2 thus could not justify the State’s use of race-based redistricting here.”
The Court’s decision notably did not strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in language minority groups. Critics of Section 2 have long held that it violates the Constitution’s equal protections clause by sorting voters based on race.
Nonetheless, liberal Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent that the verdict rendered Section 2 “all but a dead letter.”
As Mike Davis, President of the Article III Project, explained, for states to draw district lines explicitly based on race, they have to prove that they are remediating intentional discrimination. “Unless you can show intentional racial discrimination, the courts need to stop getting involved,” Davis said. “No more DEI districts.”
During oral arguments last year, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other conservative justices appeared open to the argument from those challenging Louisiana’s map that Congress intended for a “sunset period” for Section 2, allowing it to weaken over time. Opponents of Section 2 have argued that while it may have been necessary when the law was passed in 1965 to redress intentionally anti-black racial gerrymandering, it is no longer necessary.
The ruling could allow Republicans to pick up as many as a dozen seats in states that have racially gerrymandered districts that would appear to conflict with the Court’s decision. Although it is unclear how many of the maps could be changed in time for this year’s midterm elections, the decision could have enormous ramifications for control of the U.S. House in 2028 and beyond.
“The American people don’t want to see Americans segregated by race in their congressional maps, which is exactly what was happening in Louisiana,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement. “Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed a basic constitutional principle: the government cannot discriminate on the basis of race when drawing congressional maps.”
Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
It’s amazing to me that the people who scream “RACISM” the loudest use race explicitly to gerrymander a district. Then, when they find out that what they’ve done is racist on its face, they proclaim that they are the victims. It’s obscene.
This decision ought to energize the Black vote but gerrymandering should cancel that out.
Hooray for the colored citizens of this country. Thanks for acknowledging that racism is dead in this country. Which the SPLC fraud exposed that they had to bribe KKK and other racist organizations to keep racism active. With this decision the Supreme Court gave equal measure to all races. The democrats are done exploiting the blacks, browns, yellow and red races. We are all the same now if we could eleminate leftist and rightist monikers and see them all as people. I think that will not happen for a long time. Hatred and negativity is the basis of the dem party with the communists in charge. The Supreme Court made in roads with this decision. Now we need to see if the democrats accept this or they find another way to interpret the redistricting laws and rules. They are not going to take this ruling quietly.
Plain and Simple: The blacks have been freed from segregation for 60 years and freed from slavery for 160 years — yet the Marxist left keeps on acting as if the blacks need preferential treatment to protect themselves from the evil conservative whites. Obama was even elected President of the USA , yet he has done his best to spread hate and resentment between the whites and blacks of this great country. Enough is Enough: The blacks have all the rights of the whites and do not need to be protected from the “privileged” whites. The Marxist Democrats are still race hustlers and America bashers, because they have no constructive ideas and policies. Many of them are actually domestic agitators who do not care if the USA is destroyed from within. They are full of emotional poison and misinformation.
Why can’t they just go back to county line division? Gerrymandering is ridiculous and they’re making it more complicated than it needs to be. Just go back to the county divisions.
Minor Victory but Victory nonetheless
Does this mean that california’s illegally redrawn map has to be redrawn again?
Finally.
Does that mean the race baiters might be looking for another way to support themselves?
this is a win for AMERICA!
we need to finally get to a non-race AMERICA.
Now we will hear the Dumba$$ocrat$ complaining “We need 37 more $upreme Court Justice$.”
God bless America.
Great!
That’s GOOD!
There the demon rats go again, calling the republicans racists when they actually founded the KKK. What a bunch of jerks.
The Voting Rights Act was passed to end INTENTIONAL discrimination! Nobody today is intentionally discriminating against blacks and it’s about time to stop pretending that anti-black racism is still prevalent. And, of course, it was DEMOCRATS who were using discrimination in the 1940s through 1960s anyway!
To me the tone of the article is part of the problem. The ruling is not a win for republicans it is a win for the American people.
So glad for this ruling, We are all citizens, not black citizens, nor white citizens. To attempt to divide us is the real danger.
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