Supreme Court Weighs Ending Race-Based Districts Before Election

The US Supreme Court is poised to consider further cutting a landmark 1965 civil rights law with a case that could boost Republican election hopes and call into question as many as 19 congressional districts with primarily Black or Hispanic populations.

In an unusual re-argument of a Louisiana redistricting clash Wednesday, the conservative-dominated court will weigh GOP calls to undercut the most significant remaining part of the Voting Rights Act, a law that was passed to address rampant discrimination against Black voters, particularly in the South. The justices have already significantly diluted the law twice since 2013.

The court is considering whether the Constitution permits the intentional creation of heavily Black or Hispanic districts to ensure that minority voters can elect candidates of their choice. A ruling that it doesn’t would be a boon for Republicans given that these districts tend to vote Democratic.

“The stakes are enormous,” said Rick Hasen, a professor and election-law expert at UCLA School of Law. “Significant minority representation in Congress, state legislatures and local bodies has existed only because of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.”

Justices of the US Supreme Court during a formal group photograph in 2022.

Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg

The Supreme Court for decades has said that Section 2, which outlaws election rules that discriminate on the basis of race, often requires majority Black or Hispanic districts to ensure the votes of racial minorities aren’t diluted. But the justices in August said they will consider whether the practice is now unconstitutional.

The clash is part of a term likely to be heavy with election cases. Fights are either pending or looming over campaign finance regulations, mail-ballot deadlines and the right of private parties to sue under the Voting Rights Act. The court could decide those cases in time for a bevy of changes to be implemented before next year’s mid-term elections determine which political party controls Congress.

Democrats are hoping to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with the current administration to gain seats in Congress during the 2026 vote, but may be stymied by Republican efforts to redraw districts to favor GOP candidates in several states.

A new study by the progressive groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund concluded that a decision overturning or weakening Section 2 could let Republicans redraw 19 House districts that are currently protected under the Voting Rights Act. The vast majority of those seats are currently held by Democrats.

The Supreme Court in 2013 nullified a different Voting Rights Act section that had required many states and cities to get federal preclearance before changing election maps or rules. In 2021, the court established a tough new test for claims that voting rules are discriminatory – a standard so demanding that no lawsuit has met it since.

Protecting Johnson

The latest clash stems from a twisting, years-long fight. Louisiana drew its lines in response to a lower court decision that said the state probably needed a second majority-Black district to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Louisiana has six congressional seats and a 33% Black population.

Louisiana lawmakers then drew a new 6th District, which runs a jagged 250-mile course from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, scooping in heavily Black areas along the way. The map preserved the districts of key Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, while opening the way for a Democrat to capture the 6th District. The Supreme Court let that map go into effect in 2023, weeks after backing a majority-Black district in Alabama in a similar fight.

A different group of Louisiana voters then opened a new front. Describing themselves as “non-African Americans,” the voters sued on the grounds that Louisiana had violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause by relying too heavily on race.

A three-judge panel declared the new map unconstitutional, and that case is now before the nation’s highest court. The court was scheduled to rule in the nine-month term that ended in late June but, in an unusual move, instead said the justices would hear a second argument to consider the broader constitutional issues.

The court’s re-argument decision prompted Louisiana to switch sides in the case. The state originally defended the map but now says the justices should invalidate it.

“It’s always been offensive to our legislature to be told to go out and sort your voters by race,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, a Republican, said in an interview. “It’s asking them to intentionally racially classify our voters.”

The Trump administration and 16 other Republican-led states are backing Louisiana.

Kavanaugh and Roberts

The court’s conservatives have questioned whether the use of race in drawing district lines remains constitutionally justified. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, potentially a pivotal vote, wrote in 2023 in the Alabama case that “the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”

Chief Justice John Roberts has prioritized the elimination of what he sees as racial classifications, underscored most recently in his 2023 opinion that barred universities from using race as an admissions factor.

Republicans are already engaged in unusual mid-decade redistricting efforts, redrawing the congressional maps in Texas and Missouri to turn a total of six seats into likely GOP pickups. Depending on how quickly the court rules, it could supercharge that process, prompting other Republican-held states to quickly redraw their maps in time for next year’s election.

Hasen, the UCLA professor, said he was struck by the court’s decision to hear arguments during the first sitting of its new term. The timing, he said, “suggests the court wants to at least have the option of getting an opinion out fast enough to affect the 2026 elections.”

The case is Louisiana v. Callais, 24-109.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

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