The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued a ruling Wednesday that many voting-rights advocates say will weaken the Voting Rights Act and could reduce the number of Black members of Congress. The decision narrows how Section 2 of the law — long used to challenge electoral maps that dilute minority voting power — is interpreted, shifting emphasis toward proving intentional racial discrimination.
Republican leaders have already urged new rounds of congressional map drawing. How much redistricting can be completed before this fall’s midterm elections is uncertain; many states have already held or are close to holding their congressional primaries.
Redistricting experts predict that, over time, Republican-controlled state legislatures in the South are likely to eliminate or alter some districts with sizable minority populations that previously would have been protected under the broader reading of Section 2. An NPR analysis from earlier this year identified at least 15 at-risk seats from Louisiana to North Carolina; that count rises if newly redrawn districts in Missouri and Texas are included.
The outcome could vary by state. Some Democratic-led states might dismantle certain majority-Black districts to disperse voters and try to gain additional seats, while some GOP-led states could preserve or even pack those districts for partisan advantage. Exactly which districts will change and when remains difficult to predict under a weakened federal enforcement regime.
Losing even a handful of protected districts could produce an unprecedented decline in Black representation in the House. The article notes that the last comparable drop occurred near the end of Reconstruction: the Congress that began in 1877 had four fewer Black House members than the prior session, and Black representation remained in the single digits or absent for a century afterward. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the number of Black-represented districts rose to about 63, roughly 14% of the House.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus responded quickly. “With this decision in Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court has opened the door to a coordinated attack on Black voters across this country,” Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, chair of the caucus, said at a press conference. “This is an outright power grab. It’s about silencing Black voices, dismantling majority Black districts and rigging the maps so that politicians can choose their voters instead of the other way around.”
The court found that a Louisiana district drawn to comply with Section 2 amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and signaled that Section 2 challenges should target intentional racial discrimination.
Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama, a Democratic leader on voting-rights legislation, said she will revise her bill to respond to recent decisions that she says have tried to “gut” the Voting Rights Act. “Listen, we cannot give up,” Sewell said. “We’re not going to give up.”
Atiba Ellis, a law professor and associate dean at Case Western Reserve University, warned that the ruling could intensify partisan gerrymandering battles and further mute the political voice of communities of color. “This could distort politics in Washington substantially by preventing communities of color from genuinely being heard,” Ellis said. “I think it highly ironic that under the guise of a colorblind Constitution communities of color in a diversifying America could lose the lion’s share of their voice in government.”
Edited by Benjamin Swasey