Voting Rights Case Sets Stage for 2050’s Multiracial Democracy

Much of the public analysis of the US Supreme Court’s recent controversial ruling in Louisiana v. Callais concerns its impact on existing “opportunity” legislative districts that had been created under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the ruling’s potential partisan consequences in the 2026 and 2028 elections. This response instead seeks to identify the longer-term questions Callais raises.

The Voting Rights Act’s prohibitions on racial discrimination are timeless and remain equally important regardless of the era or our nation’s racial makeup. And the race-conscious provisions of Section 2 at issue in Callais may implicate somewhat different considerations depending on the backdrop against which they are applied.

The US has continued its transition into a more diverse, vibrantly multiracial republic. According to the Pew Research Center, in 1965—the year that the Voting Rights Act was adopted—the US population was 84% White and 11% Black, with Hispanics and Asians constituting 4% and less than 1%, respectively. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was adopted primarily to prevent the overwhelmingly predominant racial majority group at the time from continuing to disenfranchise a discrete and insular minority, African Americans, which had been marginalized and largely excluded from political life.

This provision was partly a response to the White majority’s stigmatization of African Americans and African Americans’ resulting systematic exclusion from participation in the political appeals, negotiations, and coalitions through which other social groups gain power in the US democratic process. Threats of violence and the discriminatory implementation of voting requirements prevented many eligible African Americans from registering to vote throughout much of the South.

Even after such barriers began to fall, the White majority would often categorically refuse to support African-American candidates, regardless of their ideology, while many White candidates eschewed public support from Black voters. The creation of opportunity districts under Section 2 was a method of enabling African Americans to exercise political power despite their isolation from, and unique marginalization within, the mainstream political process.

The latest census reveals that, nearly six decades later in 2024, the US population was approximately 57.5% non-Hispanic White, 13.7% Black, 20% Hispanic, 6.7% Asian, and 3.1% who identify as multiracial. The Census Bureau predicts that, by 2050, non-Hispanic Whites will no longer constitute a majority of the population. Thus, within a few decades, no single racial group will comprise a majority. And many voters are likely to be multiracial, raising new questions Section 2 doesn’t contemplate.

Against this backdrop, a risk may have arisen under the Supreme Court’s previous interpretation of Section 2 that, rather than protecting a minority against the majority, it could have become a judicial mechanism for allocating and balancing power among various non-majority groups. Courts could have been called on to separate members of each race into distinct legislative districts and ensure that no particular group could elect “too many” of its preferred candidates to a town council, county commission, or state legislature. The judiciary could have increasingly been put in the uncomfortable position of determining, for example, whether districts represented by candidates supported by the African-American community in a particular city or county should be redrawn to favor candidates supported by the Hispanic population there.

Legislative candidates, in turn, may have been incentivized to appeal primarily to voters within their own racial groups rather than building broad coalitions across racial lines. It is difficult to predict whether the possibility of coalition districts in which multiple groups join together would have exacerbated or ameliorated such risks, but courts were deeply divided over whether Section 2 provided for such districts in the first place.

Section 2(b) of the Voting Rights Act expressly disclaims any intent to mandate racial proportionality. Against the backdrop of a multiracial republic with numerous sizeable racial groups, however, it is difficult to see how Section 2 would avoid degenerating into just that. A multiracial republic can’t thrive if it becomes balkanized into members of different races competing against each other for power, rather than working together to promote mutual interests.

We often think of an electoral system as a tool for determining an objective, independent fact: the will of the people. But the electoral system can also directly affect the will of the people—particularly voters’ partisan and political preferences. Incumbents have substantial advantages and political parties often coalesce to support them. The creation of districts drawn around racial lines may encourage the development of public policy based on racial considerations, which in turn could contribute to the perpetuation of racially polarized voting and the corresponding requirement for such districts under Section 2 as interpreted prior to Callais.

In a multiracial republic where numerous non-majority racial groups may be entitled to such districts, the end result could be to further entrench race into the heart of the political process, rather than promoting progress to an era where its salience is reduced. In short, Section 2 responded to racial polarization, but under some circumstances could have contributed to it.

Racism, discrimination, and inequality of material resources remain serious societal concerns. Over the past several decades, partisanship may have grown to surpass race as a main driver of modern political action. To the extent that each political party would welcome anyone who supports its principles to participate as a voter or candidate, the causes for racial disparities in political power have accordingly evolved since the 1960s. Insofar as modern political parties want to maximize their candidates’ vote tallies, partisan gerrymandering may generally be a goal in itself, rather than a fig leaf concealing racial gerrymandering. However, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act doesn’t seem to be a well-tailored tool for addressing potential concerns about partisan gerrymandering.

In short, Callais will likely compel re-examination of the best way to protect voting rights for citizens of all races as our nation continues its evolution into a multicultural republic that, for the first time in US history, will lack a single numerically majority race. This development may have caused Section 2, as traditionally construed by the Supreme Court, to become an increasingly flawed tool for guaranteeing equal voting rights for all.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Michael T. Morley is Sheila M. McDevitt Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Florida State University Election Law Center.

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