Justice Jackson Takes Originalist Approach on Voting Rights

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invoked the original meaning of the US Constitution in her first days of Supreme Court arguments, suggesting that she’s willing to engage with a constitutional doctrine traditionally associated with conservatives.

The “framers themselves adopted the equal protection clause” reflected in the 14th and 15th amendments “in a race conscious way,” Jackson said Tuesday in countering the argument that redistricting—and particularly challenges to redistricting plans under the Voting Rights Act—must be race-blind.

Jackson hinted at a willingness to engage with the doctrine known as originalism—the idea that judges should look to the original meaning of the Constitution ...