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The last major safeguard for Black voters under the Voting Rights Act (VRA) may soon be eliminated, per The Guardian.
This week, the Supreme Court has signaled that it may strike down Section 2, the provision of the VRA that prohibits racially discriminatory voting practices, including gerrymandering that dilutes Black political power.
The Court heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais on Wednesday (October 15), during which conservative justices appeared poised to rule in favor of the lawsuit brought by a group of “non-African American voters.” The lawsuit argues that redrawing Louisiana’s congressional maps to give Black voters a second majority district, as ordered by lower courts under the VRA, violates the plaintiffs’ rights under the 14th and 15th Amendments.
A ruling in favor of the lawsuit would effectively end federal protections against racial gerrymandering. Section 2 is the last major safeguard for Black voters after the nation’s highest court gutted Section 5 of the VRA in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, which had required states with histories of voter suppression to get federal approval before changing voting laws.
“The remedies are so tied up with race because race is the initial problem,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said Wednesday as she pushed back against the court’s conservative majority.
Louisiana v. Callais centers around the state’s redistricting after the 2020 census. Although Black residents make up one-third of Louisiana’s population, lawmakers drew only one majority-Black congressional district. Federal courts ordered the state to create a second, but the new challenge aims to overturn that order, claiming it discriminates against white voters.
Conservative justices argued that partisan motives, not race, justified the map. Their argument mirrors the 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, where Chief Justice John Roberts claimed racial discrimination in voting had diminished.
Experts warn that a ruling against Section 2 would make it virtually impossible to challenge racial gerrymanders, stripping Black voters of meaningful legal recourse.
“The Voting Rights Act enforces the 15th Amendment — it doesn’t violate it,” Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said in a statement.
A decision is expected by June 2026, just months before the midterms, during which Republicans could gain as many as 19 House seats through racially skewed maps that may no longer be subject to legal challenge.
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