Supreme Court hollows out a landmark law that had protected minority voting rights for 6 decades
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Lyndon B. Johnson knew the law he was about to sign was momentous; This legislation required courage for some members of Congress because voting for it could cost them their seats.
To honor this, he took the unusual step of leaving the Oval Office and heading to Capitol Hill. signing ceremony. It was five months later, August 6, 1965. ‘Bloody Sunday’ attack The bill regarding civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama gave impetus to the bill referred to as: Voting Rights Act.
In the six decades since, it has become one of the most important pieces of legislation in the nation’s history; it prevented discrimination against minorities at the ballot box and helped thousands of people get elected. Black and Hispanic representatives at all levels of government.
on wednesday, US Supreme Court It eliminated a key pillar of the law that protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation. This was a decision made more than a decade after the court undermined that decision. Another fundamental principle of the law and led to restrictive voting laws in some states. Voting and civil rights advocates were left fearful of what lay ahead for minority communities.
“That means you have entire communities that could go without representation,” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of the group Black Voters Matter. “This literally takes us back unapologetically to the Jim Crow era, and that’s no exaggeration.”
Kareem Crayton, deputy director of the Washington office of the Brennan Center for Justice, said the court’s steady work to erode the Voting Rights Act culminated in Wednesday’s decision, meaning it was “buried without a funeral.”
Draining America’s ‘biggest legislative landmark’
of the Supreme Court The ruling came in a congressional redistricting case in Louisiana after the state created a district that gave the state jurisdiction. second Black representative To Congress.
He concluded that this map was unconstitutional because it took race into account to draw the lines. In the opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court’s conservative majority said the Voting Rights Act provision at issue, called Section 2, was designed to protect voters from intentional discrimination.
In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the bar on showing intentional discrimination was “an almost insurmountable bar to any voting rights issue that would prove discrimination.”
Voting rights experts say decision is annulled Voting Rights Act It is merely a shell of what was in the past, and will provide an open door for political mapmakers at all levels, from local school districts to state legislatures to Congress, to undermine minority representation.
“We are witnessing the evisceration of America’s greatest legislative landmark by a far-right Supreme Court,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York.
Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, said the resolution would allow for more aggressive “smashing and packing” of populations to dilute their votes “not just in congressional districts, but also in state legislatures, county commissions, school boards and city councils.”
VRA was the main tool in combating the decline in voting power
Voting rights experts said there’s no doubting the law’s impact over the decades.
Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor at Howard University and former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said there were about 1,500 black elected officials nationwide in 1970. Today that number is more than 10,000.
“And it’s not because of the goodness of people’s hearts,” he said.
The success, he said, was a direct result of Black communities, civil rights activists and advocates having the tools to challenge efforts to reduce the voting power of Black and Hispanic voters through the Voting Rights Act. Most Part 2 cases are over representation in local governments.
It’s not just numbers.
Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, said loss of representation, especially in state legislatures and Congress, would mean minority communities lose their say on issues important to them, such as health care, education and necessary public works improvements.
“States can now point to partisan goals to justify maps that eliminate voters’ representative color, and federal courts will have little basis to intervene,” he said.
A steady erosion in court, a doubtful future
The landmark law that Johnson signed 61 years ago has been changed over the years, but the biggest change in 2013Supreme Court Shelby County v. When he announced his decision in the Holder case. This decision essentially ended a ruling Voting Rights Act Mandates the manner in which states and local jurisdictions are included in the list of those required to obtain prior approval or prior authorization for voting-related changes.
This decision paved the way for a wave of terror in mostly Republican states. restrictive election legislationespecially after Republican President Donald Trump, falsely claimed Widespread fraud cost him his re-election against Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.
Inside a surprise decision In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 in the Alabama redistricting case, a decision that was essentially reversed Wednesday.
The question now is what happens next for minority representatives and the communities they represent.
in Louisiana, decision It puts Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields on the endangered list. This isn’t the first time redistricting has complicated Fields’ political plans. He served two terms in the 1990s before the state realigned congressional districts.
“I’ve been down this road before, you know, 33 years ago,” he said.
Shomari Figures, who won the seat created in Alabama after the court’s 2023 decision, said the ruling does not change the state’s existing congressional districts but makes it significantly harder to prove racial discrimination in the future in redistricting cases.
“This will lead states, especially the South, to launch immediate efforts to redraw districts in ways that will reduce the influence of black voters and greatly reduce the number of realistic opportunities to elect black members to Congress,” he said.
Shalela Dowdy, an Alabama resident who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that resulted in the creation of a new district now represented by Figures, said she was concerned the decision would lead to a rollback of the district created in 2023, which she said gave Black voters more of a say.
“Leaving this in the hands of the states at this level is dangerous,” Dowdy said. “There is a history of states not doing the right thing based on their population.”
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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Ala. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Joey Cappelletti, Matt Brown and Haya Panjwani in Washington; and Graham Lee Brewer in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
