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voting rights act
5th Circuit Strikes Down Louisiana Legislative Maps Racially Gerrymandered by GOP
One ACLU attorney said the ruling "sends a powerful message: The Voting Rights Act is still a vital safeguard against racial discrimination in our democracy."
Aug 15, 2025
In what the ACLU called "a victory for Black voters and democracy in Louisiana," a three-judge panel of the staunchly conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower court's ruling that struck down the state's racially rigged legislative maps for violating the Voting Rights Act.
The panel agreed in Nairne v. Landry that Louisiana's state Senate and House of Representatives new maps, enacted in 2022, "dilute the voting strength of Black Louisianans in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965."
The maps do so, the court wrote, "by 'packing' Black voters into a small number of majority-Black districts and 'cracking' other Black communities across multiple districts, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to form effective voting blocs."
The panel—whose members were appointed by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Joe Biden—also found "no basis" supporting Louisiana's assertion that conditions had changed enough in the state to negate the need for race-minded remedies.
🚨Big Win for Black Voters in Louisiana! ️Today, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a critical victory by upholding a lower court’s decision that struck down Louisiana’s state legislative maps for unlawfully diluting Black voting power.www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
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— Black Voters Matter Fund (@blackvotersmatterfund.org) August 14, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Louisiana must now redraw legislative maps that better reflect the demography of a state in which nearly one-third of the population is Black but roughly just a quarter of its legislative districts are majority African American. However, there is a stay on the redraw until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which involves the state's racially rigged congressional map.
"I am beyond elated for this powerful win of Nairne v. Landry that touches all of Louisiana, including rural areas like Assumption Parish, where transformation has been nonexistent for far too long," plaintiff Dorothy Nairne said in a statement.
"Our people are ready to roar through our votes using legislative maps that truly represent us all," she added. "This victory ignites our desire to be involved, to uplift ourselves, and to shape the future our ancestors dreamed of."
Another plaintiff in the case, Alice Washington, said that "a unanimous win is incredible as the court clearly held Louisiana must have maps where Black voters have a fair opportunity to elect candidates of choice. We are advancing our state to a more perfect place and hopefully will inspire all to want to live here."
Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana—which represents case plaintiffs—said that the panel "has affirmed what we've always known, Black voters in Louisiana deserve equal representation."
"This is a vital step toward correcting generations of injustice, and we will not stop until every Black Louisianan has the full and fair representation guaranteed to all Americans," Odoms added.
ACLU Voting Rights Project staff attorney Megan Keenan said the ruling "sends a powerful message: The Voting Rights Act is still a vital safeguard against racial discrimination in our democracy. The court recognized the reality that many Black voters in Louisiana have been denied full and fair representation."
ANOTHER WIN: 5th Circuit Sides with Black Louisianians, Strikes Down Racially Discriminatory State Mapwww.naacpldf.org/press-releas...
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— Janai Nelson (@janainelson.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 2:20 PM
The Legal Defense Fund also represents plaintiffs in the case. LDF assistant counsel Sara Rohani lauded "the strength and resilience of Black communities across Louisiana who have fought for years to be fairly recognized, represented, and heard."
"Fair representation is not optional in Louisiana," Rohani added. "Today's decision reaffirms that the state must pass fair and nondiscriminatory maps to comply with the Voting Rights Act. We look forward to rectifying another example of Louisiana's long history of racial voter suppression."
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, condemned Thursday's ruling, telling the Louisiana Illuminator that "we are reviewing our options with a focus on stability in our elections and preserving state and judicial resources while the [US] Supreme Court resolves related issues."
One of those issues involves Louisiana's congressional map, which was drawn by Republican state lawmakers to include just one majority Black district. The justices are set to hear that case, Callais v. Landry, as well as the closely related Louisiana v. Callais—which differ in procedural postures—during the high court's upcoming term.
These battles in Louisiana come as the Voting Rights Act turns 60 amid numerous Republican attacks on the landmark legislation. GOP-controlled state legislatures across the country have enacted racially rigged congressional maps, imposed restrictions on voter registration, reduced early voting options, and passed 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.
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Voting Rights Act 'On Life Support' Amid Right-Wing Attacks
"It's time for Congress to restore its full protections by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act," said one Democratic lawmaker.
Aug 06, 2025
As the Voting Rights Act turned 60 on Wednesday, advocates highlighted right-wing attacks on the landmark legislation and called on Congress to pass a long-stagnant bill aimed at restoring and strengthening one of the most important civil rights laws in U.S. history.
The VRA, signed into law in 1965 by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson amid a groundswell of civil rights activism, 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 U.S. 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.
"Instead of anniversary toasts, election law experts are preparing eulogies for the landmark legislation."
Now, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority is poised to "end voting rights as we know them," as Mother Jones reporter Pema Levy put it Tuesday. That's because the justices said last week that they would rehear a case that could result in them striking down Section 2 of the VRA, what University of California, Los Angeles legal scholar Richard L. Hasen calls "the last remaining pillar" of the law.
"Instead of anniversary toasts, election law experts are preparing eulogies for the landmark legislation, which conservative lawyers have attacked on multiple fronts in recent years, after the U.S. Supreme Court took square aim at the statute's constitutionality last week," Jim Saksa wrote Tuesday for Democracy Docket.
As Hasen explained:
Louisiana v. Callais, the case that was the subject of last Friday's order, is a voting case over the drawing of the state's six congressional districts. Louisiana has a one-third Black population, but after the 2020 census the state Legislature drew a districting plan, passed over a Democratic governor's veto, that created only one district in which Black voters would be likely to elect their candidate of choice.
Before Callais, Black voters had successfully sued Louisiana in a case called Robinson v. Ardoin, arguing that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required drawing a second congressional district giving Black voters that opportunity. Section 2 says minority voters should have the same chance as other voters to elect their candidates of choice, and courts have long used it to require new districts when there is a large and cohesive minority population concentrated in a given area, when white and minority voters choose different candidates, and when the minority has difficulty electing its preferred representatives.
However, a group of non-Black voters argued in a lawsuit that the consideration of race in creating a second minority-majority district violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause and the 15th Amendment's ban on federal and state governments denying citizens the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
"To me, this is it," Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, a law professor at Indiana University Bloomington, told Democracy Docket. "I would bet my left arm that they will tell us that Section 2 is in violation of the 15th Amendment."
Civil rights defenders including numerous Democratic lawmakers urged Congress to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation first introduced in 2021 whose sponsors said will "update and restore critical safeguards of the original Voting Rights Act."
"Sixty years ago today, the Voting Rights Act became law thanks to the perseverance of civil rights activists. Today, our sacred right to vote remains under attack," Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), one of the bill's primary sponsors, said on social media Wednesday. "We must protect our democracy and honor those who risked everything by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act."
Although the bill passed the then-Democrat controlled House of Representatives in 2021, it failed to pass the Senate and a subsequent bid to advance the legislation failed the following year.
Calling for passage of the bill, Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.)—whose home state played a critical role in the civil rights struggle—said on the social media site Bluesky that the VRA "is on life support after being gutted by the Supreme Court and far-right judges."
The Voting Rights Act was signed into law exactly 60 years ago. But today, it is on life support after being gutted by the Supreme Court and far-right judges.It’s time for Congress to restore its full protections by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. 🗳️
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— Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@sewell.house.gov) August 6, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said on Bluesky that "60 years ago today, the Voting Rights Act became law. Now, we have an administration conducting voter suppression in real time. In Texas, Republicans are trying to gut our democracy by redrawing maps to erase five Democratic seats—before a single vote is cast."
"The fight continues," Crockett added. "We owe it to those who marched, bled, and believed to keep pushing until every voice is heard and every vote counts."
The ACLU said: "Democracy can't wait. Congress must protect our voting rights at the federal level by passing the reintroduced John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act."
However, passing the bill will be next to impossible, given Republican control of both houses of Congress and President Donald Trump in the White House. That doesn't mean voting rights defenders should give up, Legal Defense Fund president and director-counsel Janai Nelson stressed Wednesday.
"If we are to continue the pursuit of the multiracial democracy that the VRA set in motion 60 years ago and if we are to honor our republican form of government founded on representation by the people, we must be unwavering in our commitment to fulfill the promise of Selma, refuse to cede any further ground, and mobilize in support of equal voting rights and fair elections," Nelson said.
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Greg Casar Calls Emergency March and Picket Outside Texas Governor's Mansion
"If Donald Trump succeeds in ending the protections of the Voting Rights Act for people of color here in Austin, then pretty soon he could succeed in ending those protections for people across America," said Casar during a recent appearance on MSNBC.
Aug 04, 2025
The chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Monday called for an emergency march and picket outside the mansion of Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to protest his radical redistricting plan that would shift as many as five seats currently held by Democrats to the Republican Party.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), whose district would be merged with the district of Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) under a Texas GOP plan that was drawn up at the urging of U.S. President Donald Trump, announced on his Facebook page that the rally would take place at 5:30 pm at the governor's mansion in downtown Austin.
"For the first time in the history of Texas, the governor is threatening to make us a one-party state," stated the post. "After Democratic legislators went around the country to rally voters against Abbott and Trump's extreme redistricting scheme, Abbott is now threatening to illegally expel all these Texas Democrats from elected office through a court order."
During a recent appearance on MSNBC, Casar outlined the dangers posed to democracy in the United States if Texas Republicans' plan should come to pass.
"If Donald Trump succeeds in ending the protections of the Voting Rights Act for people of color here in Austin, then pretty soon he could succeed in ending those protections for people across America," he said. "My current district in East Austin... is a Voting Rights Act-protected district to give Latinos in this area voting power. That's part of what MLK marched for when he pushed for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And what they're trying to do here in Austin, as a test case, is to get rid of that. And they wouldn't stop in Austin or in Texas."
What Trump is trying to do here in Austin is a test case for shredding the Voting Rights Act.
We’ve got to stop him here and now. pic.twitter.com/5DrnbD2VU6
— Congressman Greg Casar (@RepCasar) August 2, 2025
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