The Supreme Court reshapes US electoral rules with a ruling that limits minority rights

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark achievement of the civil rights era. In a 6-3 decision, in which the conservative bloc used its supermajority, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs who challenged the State of Louisiana for creating a second majority‑Black district to comply with Section 2 of the law.

The decision opens the door for Republicans to rush to redraw electoral districts held by their rivals, especially in the South. These are known here as “minority-majority” districts, where a minority group, such as African Americans, makes up more than 50% of the population.

The ruling, which carries enormous long‑term implications because it alters electoral rules that have shaped the United States for the past six decades, also threatens to affect the upcoming midterm elections in November, in which the Republican Party is vying to maintain control of one or both chambers of Congress, and U.S. President Donald Trump enters a decisive stretch of his term — and potentially a third impeachment.

The court’s majority opinion, written by one of its most conservative justices, Samuel Alito, significantly weakens Section 2 of the law, which bars the drawing of electoral districts — through the widely criticized practice known as gerrymandering — in ways that dilute the voting power of Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian communities, which have traditionally leaned Democratic. Until Wednesday, it was constitutional for institutions to give weight to the right of those minorities to see themselves reflected in the politicians who represent them.

The Voting Rights Act also requires consideration of demographic composition to avoid favoring the white majority by packing or splitting districts. Alito argues that an incorrect application of Section 2 has distorted the law’s intent, bringing it into conflict, he says, with the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. “Section 2 was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Alito writes.

The justice stresses that the intention is for the ruling to apply only to the Louisiana case, but nothing prevents Republicans in other states — Florida, for example — from invoking the precedent. That was the warning issued by liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who read her dissent aloud in the courtroom, an uncommon gesture used to signal strong disagreement with a Supreme Court decision.

Reconciliation

The law, championed by Senator John Lewis, marked a significant step forward in reconciling a country with a painful history of slavery, where racial discrimination persisted across large portions of its territory for decades after the Civil War. The law, which has been a target of conservatives for decades, also outlawed discriminatory voting practices, such as requiring literacy tests to vote or levying taxes on ballots.

For 60 years, it has greatly contributed to increasing the representation of minorities in state and federal offices. It also had immediate consequences: as Ari Berman recounts in his book (titled after a famous Martin Luther King speech), Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, “it increased the number of registered Black voters in the Southern states from 31% to 73%, and raised the number of African American representatives nationwide from 500 to 10,500.”

This is the same Supreme Court that, a couple of years ago, dealt a fatal blow to affirmative action in universities with a ruling that struck down the admissions systems at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. In practice, it ended decades in which Black and Latino students were given an advantage based on the idea that educational institutions should offer them greater opportunities in the interest of a more diverse society — and more diverse centers of power.

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