The United States Supreme Court heard final arguments in Louisiana v. Callais last Wednesday, and the country now awaits its decision on whether to upend a key provision of a landmark civil rights law.
The case examines whether Louisiana lawmakers violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution by creating a second Black-majority congressional district, which prosecutors say dilutes other voters’ power. This case would overturn Robinson v. Landry, in which the Middle District of Louisiana and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that having only one Black-majority district violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a nationwide ban on any voting practice that restricts the right to vote based on race, color or membership in a language minority group.
Louisiana initially released a new congressional map following the 2020 census that included only one majority-Black district of the six congressional districts. However, Black voters argued the map diluted the voting power of the state’s one-third Black population.
Following a district court order in favor of the challenge, the map was changed to add a second Black-majority congressional district, which non-African American voters then challenged in court as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
The plaintiffs in the case file alleged that the “second majority-minority district … stretches some 250 miles from Shreveport in the northwest corner of the state to Baton Rouge in southeast Louisiana, slicing through metropolitan areas to scoop up pockets of predominantly Black populations.”
The New York Times reported that the oral arguments centered on whether states are allowed to consider race as a factor in drawing voting maps. Previous legal precedent has upheld Section 2 to prevent vote dilution under specific qualifications, while making racial gerrymandering illegal.
In the October 16 hearing, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh — a Trump-nominated addition to the Supreme Court whose vote on upending Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act could swing the conservative majority — questioned if race-based remedies should be permissible for a limited period of time.
In a statement to Annenberg Media, Sophia Lin Lankin, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said Section 2 is a critical tool to undo efforts suppressing the voting power of people of color. The Voting Rights Project protects the political participation efforts won by voters of color since the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed.
“Congress passed the Voting Rights Act with overwhelming, bipartisan support — and reauthorized it again and again — because our leaders understood a fundamental truth: you cannot cure discrimination by pretending it doesn’t exist,” Lankin said.
Diego Andrades, associate director at USC’s Center for the Political Future, said that the Supreme Court has overturned key sections of the Voting Rights Act in the past.
Section 5, which required certain jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to obtain federal approval before implementing any changes to their voting procedures, was ruled to be unconstitutional in 2013. The Court settled that its formula was based on outdated data from the 1960s and 1970s and imposed burdens on certain states.
“It’s possible that this court doesn’t rule on whether or not Section 2 is constitutional,” Andrades said. “It could be a lot more nuanced than that. This might be one case in a series of cases that this court would chisel away at the act instead of outright overturning an entire section.”
Andrades added that the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the civil rights law could affect minority groups that comprise a majority in a district’s total population.
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prevents gerrymandering because it requires states to have majority-minority districts, which means that there are going to be some Democratic seats in the South,” he said. “Without that, you’d start to see those seats disappear.”
If Section 2 of the law is no longer enforceable, GOP-controlled states could revise at least 19 more voting districts across the South in favor of Republicans, according to a report by advocacy groups Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action.
The decision comes at a time when redistricting has taken a central focus for state governments — earlier this year, Texas redrew voting maps to add several Republican-leaning districts. In response, California introduced Proposition 50, which aims to create more Democrat-leaning districts.
California will make its own decision about its voting maps by deciding on Proposition 50 in a statewide special election November 4.
It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will make a decision on the case. But, depending on the timing of the ruling, a number of Democratic leaning congressional maps could be redistricted before next year’s midterm election.