Supreme Court weakens Voting Rights Act in major redistricting case, voiding Louisiana's congressional map
Washington — The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Louisiana's congressional map that includes two majority-Black districts, delivering a significant victory for Republicans in a major decision that narrows the landmark Voting Rights Act.
The high court upheld a lower court ruling that found Louisiana mapmakers relied too heavily on race when they redrew the state's voting boundaries to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court's conservative majority found that compliance with Section 2 could not justify the state's use of race in redrawing its House district lines.
"Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the state's use of race in creating SB8," Alito wrote, referring to the map. "That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander, and its use would violate the plaintiffs' constitutional rights."
The decision has implications far beyond political representation in Louisiana. The Voting Rights Act's protections have been key for voters seeking to challenge redistricting plans that they argue are racially discriminatory. The ruling will likely make it more difficult for minority voters and voting rights groups to successfully challenge voting maps under Section 2.
The decision and Kagan's dissent
The high court's conservative majority altered the legal framework courts use when evaluating claims of vote dilution brought under the voting rights law, raising the bar plaintiffs must meet to prove a violation. The "updated" standard, Alito said, "reflects important developments" since it was first adopted by the Supreme Court 40 years ago.
"In short, Section 2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race," he wrote. "Not only does this interpretation follow from the plain text of Section 2, but it is consistent with the limited authority that the Fifteenth Amendment confers."
Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote in her dissent that the majority "eviscerates" Section 2. She warned that as a result of the Supreme Court's decision, the law is "all but dead-letter."
"Under the Court's new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens' voting power," she wrote. Kagan read a summary of her dissent from the bench.
Kagan said that under the conservative majority's new test, plaintiffs challenging a redistricting plan must show that legislators acted with a racially discriminatory motive, which she said is "well-nigh impossible." She warned that minority voters in Louisiana and other states will lose the equal opportunity to elect their preferred candidates, leading to a sharp decline in minority representation.
"I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote," she said. "I dissent because the Court's decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity."
The decision comes just months ahead of the November midterm elections. Candidates have already filed to run across Louisiana's six congressional districts, but the time for state Republicans to mount a late attempt to redraw the map appears to have run out. Party primary elections are set for May 16, with early voting beginning Saturday.
Still, the decision could be a boon for Republicans across the country, who have had to craft majority-minority districts in some states in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The question before the court was whether race-based redistricting violates the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
Louisiana's map, which was also used in the 2024 election cycle, includes four majority-White districts and two majority-Black districts. It had been invalidated by a three-judge district court panel as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The White House cheered the Supreme Court's decision, calling it a "complete and total victory" for voters.
"The color of one's skin should not dictate which congressional district you belong in," Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. "We commend the court for putting an end to the unconstitutional abuse of the Voting Rights Act and protecting civil rights."
The NAACP, which represented a group of plaintiffs that defended Louisiana's map with two majority-minority districts, said the ruling should motivate voters to turn out for the midterm elections to protect minority representation.
"Today's decision is a devastating blow to what remains of the Voting Rights Act, and a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the system by silencing entire communities," NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement. "The Supreme Court betrayed Black voters, they betrayed America, and they betrayed our democracy. This ruling is a major setback for our nation and threatens to erode the hard-won victories we've fought, bled, and died for."
The ruling from the Supreme Court joins recent decisions from 2013 and 2021 in which the conservative justices have chipped away at the Voting Rights Act. Voting rights groups had warned that the ruling in the Louisiana case could impact the upcoming midterm elections by leading some states with later primaries to quickly redraw their congressional districts, ultimately resulting in a decline in minority representation in Congress.
It's unclear whether Republicans in certain states will mount 11th-hour attempts to redraw congressional voting lines. Lawmakers in several places, including Texas, California, North Carolina, Virginia and Missouri, have already undertaken a mid-decade redistricting, though with political motivations.
Louisiana's map
The protracted legal battle over Louisiana's congressional map began in 2022, when state Republican lawmakers adopted new House district lines in the wake of the 2020 Census. That map consisted of five majority-White districts and one majority-Black district. Nearly one-third of Louisiana's population is Black, according to Census data.
A group of African-American voters filed a lawsuit arguing the map violated Section 2 because it diluted Black voting strength and deprived minority voters of the opportunity to elect their preferred candidate. A federal judge in Baton Rouge ruled for the voters and ordered the state to enact a remedial map with a second majority-minority House district.
The re-drawn plan was adopted by Louisiana's legislature in 2024 and reconfigured the state's 6th Congressional District to ensure the map complied with the Voting Rights Act. Republicans in the state said they also crafted the map with a political goal: to protect powerful GOP incumbents in the House, namely Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Julia Letlow, a member of the Appropriations Committee.
Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, was elected to represent Louisiana's 6th Congressional District in November 2024.
But the new map drew its own challenge from a group of 12 self-described "non-African-American" voters, who argued it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. A divided panel of three judges invalidated the new district lines and found that the state legislature relied too much on race when it crafted them.
Louisiana Republicans and Black voters appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in its last term and urged the justices to keep the re-drawn map intact. But the high court scheduled the case for re-argument in June and asked the parties to address whether race-based redistricting comports with the Constitution.
When the case was before the Supreme Court last year, Louisiana officials defended the new voting boundaries and urged the high court to leave them in place. But after the court said it would weigh the legality of race-based redistricting, the state reversed course and said its intentional creation of a majority-minority district violated the Constitution.
Reaction to the court's decision
The Supreme Court's decision swiftly drew responses largely divided along party lines, with Democrats decrying the ruling and Republicans cheering it.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, said the court's ruling vindicates the state's position. She said she will work with the governor and state legislature to provide guidance regarding a map that complies with the Constitution.
"The Supreme Court has ended Louisiana's long-running nightmare of federal courts coercing the state to draw a racially discriminatory map," she said in a statement. "That was always unconstitutional — and this is a seismic decision reaffirming equal protection under our nation's laws."
GOP Rep. Richard Hudson, who leads the National Republican Congressional Committee, applauded the decision. The group is tasked with defending the Republican majority in the House.
"The Supreme Court made clear that our elections should be decided by voters, not engineered through unconstitutional mandates," he said in a statement. "For too long, activists have manipulated the redistricting process to achieve political outcomes, dividing Americans instead of bringing them together. This ruling restores fairness, strengthens confidence in our elections, and ensures every voter is treated equally under the law."
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, lambasted the ruling, calling it a "gut punch."
"Today is a dark day for America — the Supreme Court just rolled back the clock on the Civil Rights Movement," he said in a statement. "The GOP-captured Supreme Court just effectively killed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a major step back in the fight for racial justice and fair representation."