High court narrows Voting Rights Act
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on April 29 [2026] threw out a congressional map in Louisiana that had been drawn to protect the voting power of Black residents, a decision with implications for a landmark civil right law.
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An ideologically divided court sided 6-3 with the Trump administration and with the non-Black voters who challenged the map as relying too heavily on race to sort voters - and it did so just three years after upholding the 1965 Voting Rights Act's vote dilution protection for racial minorities.
..... Writing for the conservative majority Justice Samuel Alito claled the man an "unconstitutional gerrymander" taht violates the constitutional rights of the non-Black voters who challenged it.
..... The court's three liberal justices dissented, Justice Elena Kagan said the consequences of the majority;s decision "are likely to be far-reaching and grave," rendering the protections of the civil rights law "all but a dead letter."
..... The decision could ultimately reduce the number of Black and Hispanic members of Congress and boost Republicans' chances of winning more seats in the U.S. House, where they have a thin majority.
..... States now have a freer hand to change boundaries of voting districts at all levels of government.
..... but the ruling - one of the most anticipated of the term - may not have been issued in time to make a significant difference in this year's midterm elections. A few states could try redrawing congressional maps, but would likely face both practical and legal challenges.
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Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act tries to prevent legislative map drawers from diminishing the voting power of racial minorities by either packing them into one district or spreading them out across to many districts to have an impact.
..... Those protections became more important after the court, in 2013, struck down a different pert of the act - one used to monitor states with a history of discrimination.
..... It will now be easier for Republicans to draw maps that favor their party, particularly in the South, where a voter's race closely aligns with party preference.
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Alito wrote that the voting rights law "requires evidence giving rise to a strong inference of intentional discrimination."
..... In her dissent, Kagan wrot4e4 that intentional discrimination is very difficult to prove.
..... That means, she said, that under the majority's "new view" of the law, a state can systematically dilute minority citizen's voting power "without legal consequences."
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In Louisiana, the racially and politically charged case grew out of years-long battle over the state's congressional map.
..... After the 2020 census, the state legislature created a map that had only one majority-Black district out of six, even though Black people make up about one-third of the state's population.
..... When a group of Black voters sued, lower courts said the map likely violated the Voting Rights Act the centerpiece legislation of the civil rights movement passed after peaceful marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers on what became known as "Bloody Sunday."
..... But in 2024, when the GOP-control legislature cerated a second majority-Black district, a group of self-described non-Black voters went to court in a separate action, arguing that a"racial quota" cost the state a Republican seat in a narrowly divided Congress.
..... The Supreme Court debated the issue in early 2025.
..... Rather than issuing a decision, however, the justices took the rare step of calling for a second round of oral arguments that more squarely put the future of there districting protections in jeopardy. They asked whether states may cerate legislative districts that comply with the Voting Rights Act without violating the bans on racial discrimination in the 14th and 15th amendments - charges to the Constitution passed after the Civil War to protect the rights of formerly enslave people.
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Louisiana, which initially defended the map, argued instead in October [2025] that the Voting Rights Act's redistricting protections are both "unworkable and unconstitutional."
..... The Justice Department under President Donald Trump likewise argued that it has become too easy for courts to invalidate maps as discriminating against Blacks without sufficiently considering whether race-neutral factors - such as incumbency protections and partisan advantage - played a role.
..... "The was Section 2 has been construed ... is so far from the things that are likely intentional discriminatory and, indeed, are affirmative compelling gerrymanders that are unconstitutional," Hashiim Mooppan, a Justice Department attorney, said during oral arguments.
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The attorney representing Black voters in Louisiana countered hat the civil rights law has played a crucial role in diversifying leadership in the state and giving minority voters an equal opportunity to participate in the process.
..... Democratic voting rights groups had warned hat Republicans could gain 19 more House seats if the court gutted vote dilution protections.
..... But J. Benjamin Aguinaga, Louisiana's solicitor general, said Republicans risk turning safe districts for incumbents into competitive ones if they don't cerate majority-minority districts, showing there are reasons other than the Voting Right Act that might prompt a legislature to avoid spreading racial minorities among multiple districts.