Supreme Court limits Voting Rights Act in setback for Black Democrats
WASHINGTON— Supreme Court conservatives announced Wednesday a major rollback of a part of the Voting Rights Act that forced states to elect at least some Black or Latino representatives to Congress and state and local legislatures.
In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that creating these majority-minority districts amounted to racial discrimination in violation of the 14th Amendment.
“We begin with the general rule that the Constitution almost never permits the federal Government or a state to discriminate on the basis of race,” Justice Samuel A. Alito said for the court, weighing what the Voting Rights Act requires.
Alito said states can draw electoral districts for partisan advantage but cannot use race as the basis for redistricting.
The decision in the Louisiana case appears likely to clear the way for Republican-led states in the South to redraw their electoral maps and eliminate voting districts that favor Black or Latino candidates for Congress, state legislatures and county boards.
The justices ruled on behalf of Louisiana’s Republican leaders and overturned the creation of a second Congressional district in favor of Black Democrats.
Nearly a third of Louisiana’s voters are black, but the state supports an electoral map that would elect white Republicans to five of six seats in the House of Representatives.
In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the court’s decision would allow “racial vote dilution in its most classic form.”
He said the decision “means that a state can systematically dilute the voting power of minority citizens without legal consequence. Of course, that is not how the majority explains its position today. Its view is exaggerated, even antiseptic.”
But he said states in the South could draw electoral districts that would deprive Black voters of equal representation.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.
Kagan said the consequences of the decision “will likely be far-reaching and serious.”
Lower courts had approved the creation of a second majority-black district in central Louisiana on the grounds that it was required under the Voting Rights Act. But Alito called the district “an unconstitutional racist gerrymander.”
