Supreme Court guts key Voting Rights Act pillar

What happened

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a Louisiana congressional map drawn to include a second majority-Black district. The decision in Louisiana v. Callais significantly weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, one of the remaining pillars of the landmark 1965 civil rights law. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by his five fellow conservative justices, ruled that the district was an “unconstitutional gerrymander” because it relied on race, not partisanship. Justice Elena Kagan said in her dissent that the decision “renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.”

Who said what

The court’s conservatives “hollowed out” a law that “increased minority representation in Congress,” state legislatures and local councils, The Associated Press said. Alito “left the landmark civil rights law on the books,” Politico said, but “gutting” it was a “long-held goal of the conservative legal movement,” and “they’re taking a victory lap.”

“This is a complete and total victory for American voters,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. It’s a “mind-boggling piece of judicial overreach,” The New York Times said in an editorial. The court’s six Republican appointees “acted more like partisan legislators” than judges, “substituting their own judgment for that of Congress.”

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What next?

The ruling will likely “touch off a scramble by Republicans” in the South to redraw congressional maps, The Washington Post said, thereby “imperiling the reelection prospects of some Black Democrats, possibly as soon as November’s midterms.” Hours after the ruling, Florida lawmakers approved a new map giving Republicans up to four new seats.