'Tragic Day for the Freedom to Vote': Supreme Court Guts Remnants of Voting Rights Act

The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Louisiana must redraw its 2024 congressional map—which created a second majority-Black district to mitigate persistent barriers to equal representation—in a decision that further guts the already tattered Voting Rights Act.

The justices ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Louisiana v. Callais that the state's map is "an unconstitutional racial gerrymander," effectively voiding the last remaining provision of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which allows voters of color to challenge racially discriminatory electoral maps in court.

The case centers on the redrawing of Louisiana's six congressional districts to better reflect the population of a state in which one-third of the people are Black, as Section 2 states that minority voters should have the same chance as others to elect candidates of their choice.

Civil and voting rights advocates challenged Louisiana's Republican-drawn and racially rigged congressional map. In 2022, a federal judge agreed that the map likely violated Section 2, and the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, ordering Louisiana to draw a new map by January 2024.

Louisiana complied. But a group of non-Black voters challenged the new map, claiming it was a racially rigged creation that violated the 14^th Amendment. The Trump administration supported the challengers, arguing that Black voters had no right to a second majority-minority district.

The Supreme Court's right-wing justices—three of whom were nominated by Trump—agreed in Wednesday's decision.

“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the right-wing majority. “Compliance with Section 2 thus could not justify the state’s use of race-based redistricting here."

Dissenting, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the ruling represents the "latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

Kagan said the majority "straight-facedly holds that the Voting Rights Act must be brought low to make the world safe for partisan gerrymanders."

Signed into law in 1965 by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson amid a groundswell of civil rights activism, the VRA was meant to ensure that state and local governments could not “deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”

However, the law has been eroded in recent decades by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country, including through racially rigged and other gerrymandered congressional maps, restrictions on voter registration, reduction in early voting options, and voter identification laws. These measures disproportionately disenfranchise minority voters, and some GOP officials have admitted that they are intended to give Republican candidates an electoral edge.

In 2013, the Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the VRA in Shelby County v. Holder, which eviscerated a key section of the law that required jurisdictions with a history of racist disenfranchisement to obtain federal approval prior to altering voting rules. In 2021, the nation’s high court voted 5-4 in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee to uphold Arizona’s voting restrictions—even as Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that they disproportionately affect minorities.

Voting rights defenders decried Wednesday's ruling.

"This devastating attack from the court majority destroys protections for voters of color across the country," the ACLU said on Bluesky.

"The impacts of the court’s ruling in this case will be felt across the country," the group added. "Redistricting remains ongoing in many states, and the severe weakening of Section 2 may affect future challenges to congressional, legislative, and local maps that dilute the voting strength of communities of color."

NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson called the decision "a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities."

Kristen Clarke, NAACP's general counsel, said:

This is one of the most consequential and devastating rulings issued by the Supreme Court in the 21st Century. The Supreme Court has put the death knell into our nation's most important federal civil rights law, one that provided Black Americans access to a democracy that they had long been excluded from. The ruling defies precedent, ignores statutory text, and will reverse decades of progress we have made as a nation. This will embolden lawmakers in former slave-holding states to target and eradicate districts that have provided Black Americans a fair opportunity to elect candidates of choice, and they will do so with the blessing of this court. It ignores the tremendous sacrifice made by Americans who bled and died for passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Demand Justice president Josh Orton said in a statement, “Today the Supreme Court gutted the remaining protections of the Voting Rights Act and handed [President] Donald Trump even more unchecked political power as he wields the presidency like a power-mad authoritarian."

“Make no mistake: This ruling isn’t about the law, it’s about power, and giving Republicans more US House seats they couldn’t otherwise win at the ballot box, all while trampling the voting rights of communities of color," Orton added. “Today’s decision is another example of why the Supreme Court has lost both its legitimacy and the trust of the American people. It must face fundamental reform if it is to once again serve our democracy.”

Nourbese Flint, president of the reproductive justice group All* Above All, lamented that "the Supreme Court yet again denies communities of color a voice in their own destiny."

"This is part of a coordinated assault on self-determination, and we have to name it as such," Flint added. "The same court that gutted the Voting Rights Act came for Roe. If we are serious about defending reproductive justice that means we have to defend democracy and reform this extremist court.”

Stand Up America managing director of policy and political affairs Brett Edkins called Wednesday "a tragic day for the freedom to vote and representative democracy."

"The Supreme Court just eviscerated the last remnants of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and opened the door to even more extreme gerrymandering that will try to drown out the voices of Black and brown voters, particularly in the South," Edkins said.

"The court’s decision will escalate the arms race of partisan gerrymanders across the country and could lead to Republican-controlled states redrawing election maps to add an additional 19 GOP House seats," Edkins continued. "This partisan court has handed a major election-year gift to Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who are trying to cling to power despite their growing unpopularity with voters."

“It’s time for Congress to act as a check on this rogue court through major reforms," he added, "including term limits, an enforceable code of ethics, and adding more justices who will defend our fundamental freedoms once Trump leaves office.”