Originally posted on www.nytimes.com
Article Credit: Eric Lee for The New York Times and Abbie VanSickle, Nicholas Corasaniti, and Emily Cochrane
Supreme Court Updates: Justices Further Weaken Voting Rights Act, Igniting Political Scramble
The court’s conservative majority said it had upheld the landmark law, as liberal justices accused the court of gutting the act. In striking down a Louisiana voting map as a racial gerrymander, the court opened the door for other states to redraw maps.
Here’s the latest.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a voting map in Louisiana, and with it dealt a blow to a landmark civil rights law and opened the door for other states to redraw their congressional maps in ways that could affect elections for years to come.
It is unclear how the decision, which split 6-3 along ideological lines, will impact November’s midterm elections amid redistricting battles that have raged in multiple states, but several are moving to draw new congressional maps in time. The decision is likely to create new Republican districts across the South for future elections, for the presidential election in 2028 and beyond.
Florida’s legislature approved a new Republican-friendly mapwithin hours of the court’s ruling, and state officials across theSouth signaled they would pursue changes to their maps that would take effect in time for elections in November.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority held that lawmakers had violated the law when they used race when drawing up a new majority-Black district. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said that the court had kept intact the Voting Rights Act but that Louisiana’s new district violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
The majority asserted that the opinion preserved a central tenet of the Voting Rights Act, but the court’s liberal wing, in dissent, argued that the justices had taken the final step to dismantle the landmark civil rights law.
Here’s what else to know:
- The opinion: Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the justices were updating the 40-year-old framework that courts look to for evaluating the use of race in drawing congressional districts. Justice Elena Kagan accused the court’s conservative majority of gutting the Voting Rights Act. Read the court’s decision here.
- Republican reaction: The White House and other Republicans hailed the ruling, with a spokeswoman for President Trump declaring it “complete and total victory for American voters.” As officials in states across the South considered how quickly they could take advantage of the decision, there was little doubt that Republicans had seized back the edge in the nation’s redistricting battle.
- Democratic reaction: Democrats, veterans of the civil rights movement and the Supreme Court’s liberal justices viewed it as further weakening the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark civil rights law. Martin Luther King III, the son of the slain civil rights leader, called the ruling “a moral indictment that reflects a continued retreat from the promise of equal justice.”
- Political impact: The decision will improve Republicans’ fortunes ahead of the midterm elections. How big of an advantage depends on a variety of factors.
- New maps: Hours after the ruling, Florida’s legislature approved a new map that could give Republicans as many as four new seats in the state’s congressional delegation. A handful of other states are expected to use the decision to redraw their voting maps.
- Voting rights act: What is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, how did it come to be, and why do some states have their own versions?
