Supreme Court ruling on Voting Rights Act could help GOP: NPR

A major redistricting case sent to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday could not only determine the fate of the federal Voting Rights Act, but also pave the way for Republicans to win a slew of additional congressional seats.

If the high court strikes down Section 2 of the law — a provision that prohibits racial discrimination in voting — GOP-controlled states could redraw at least 19 additional House districts in favor of Republicans, according to a recent report from voting rights groups Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action.

And depending on when the court decides on the case, the so-called Louisiana v. Callaisa number of seats could be redistributed before next year’s midterm elections.

The analysis comes as President Trump continues to lead the Republican Party’s push for new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and other states that could help Republicans preserve their slim majority in the House after the 2026 elections.

The GOP effort could be bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling that eliminates longstanding Section 2 protections against diluting the collective power of racial minority voters.

Many supporters of the landmark law fear such an outcome after the conservative-majority court failed to rule on the Louisiana case last time and instead scheduled a rare second round of oral arguments, which is expected to focus on the constitutionality of Section 2 redistricting requirements.

A ruling gutting Section 2 could have a cascading effect on congressional maps in most Southern states, where Republicans control both the legislative chambers and the governor’s office or have a veto-proof majority in the Legislature — and where voting is racially polarized, with black voters tending to vote Democratic and white voters tending to vote Republican.

If mapmakers in these states are no longer required under Section 2 to draw districts where racial minority voters have a realistic chance of electing their preferred candidate, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas could end up with fewer Democratic representatives in Congress. Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee could lose all of theirs, according to the report.

Up to 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11% of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could also be lost.

All of this leads to the possibility that Republicans will cement single-party control of the House for at least a generation, says Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of the Black Voters Matter Fund.

“Part of what we’re trying to make with this report is that what happens in the South doesn’t just stay in the South,” Albright adds. “This racial gerrymandering has the capacity to not only disempower Black voters, but also eliminate Black and Latino elected officials. What happens in these states impacts the entire country.”

How the Supreme Court striking down Section 2 could lead to “every man for himself” redistricting

In the Louisiana case, a lower court ordered the Republican-controlled state legislature to draw a new congressional map after a group of black voters filed a Section 2 lawsuit.

Section 2 “ensures that all communities of color can still participate equally in the voting process and elect candidates who reflect their interests,” says Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, whose attorneys help represent these Black voters. “And if communities of color are not able to do that, we risk losing what I think most of us consider to be so fundamental to our democracy, which is equal participation and equal opportunity.”

The court-ordered map, which was in effect for the 2024 elections, allowed Democrats to win a second seat in Louisiana.

A group of self-described “non-African American” voters, led by Phillip Callais, argued, however, that the race-based redistricting ordered by the court to comply with Section 2 was unconstitutional. Just as the Supreme Court ruled against race-based affirmative action at colleges and universities in 2023, they argue, the court should end race-based policy map-making under Section 2.

In requesting a rehearing in the Louisiana case, the Supreme Court asked all parties in the case to consider whether “the State’s intentional creation of a minority-majority Second Congressional District violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

In one of their latest briefs to the high court, Louisiana state Republican officials now oppose the use of race “in any form” in redistricting.

And in a major change from previous administrations, the Justice Department under Trump agrees that Section 2 protections against racial discrimination are no longer constitutional.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court rejected a similar argument made by Alabama Republicans.

“The court could reaffirm the Voting Rights Act as it did in 2023 by Allen v. Milligan” says Atiba Ellis, professor and associate dean at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. “But many observers — and I am one of them — worry that the court is becoming increasingly cynical about race-sensitive remedies to remedy long-standing civil rights wrongs. And this decision has the potential to be the tipping point where the court declares unconstitutional or severely restricts Congress’s ability to create solutions that promote multiracial democracy. »

This type of ruling, coming amid the mid-decade congressional redistricting war between Republicans and Democrats, Ellis adds, could pave the way for true “every man for himself” — also highlighting the court’s 2019 ruling that partisan gerrymandering is not reviewable in federal courts.

“It’s one thing for politicians on both sides of the aisle to use the power they have to engage in unprecedented power grabs. But the most important check on those power grabs has been the prevention of racial discrimination,” Ellis says of Section 2. “In the absence of a federal law that would prevent this discrimination, I think the consequences could be enormous and could be felt for decades.”

The window of time to pass new congressional maps before the midterm elections is getting closer as state deadlines draw closer. Louisiana’s top election official, Secretary of State Nancy Landry, has asked the Supreme Court to rule on the case by early January 2026 to avoid disrupting the state’s current calendar.

But the timetable remains unclear for the Supreme Court, which usually issues its decisions in major cases near the end of its term, in June.

The court confirmed that it plans to discuss early next month whether it intends to take up a case in North Dakota over whether individuals and groups — whose lawsuits have been the primary means of enforcing Article 2 — can continue to file lawsuits. Republican state officials in Mississippi also raised this issue in another redistricting case on direct appeal to the high court.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey