The voting rights case that could set us back 60 years

TL;DR

Louisiana v. Callais could gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, potentially flipping 19 House seats and erasing 60 years of minority voting protections.

Key Points

• 1.The Voting Rights Act of 1965 transformed Black political participation almost overnight. In Mississippi, Black voter registration jumped from under 7% to 60% within just two years of the Act's passage, driven by Section 2 (banning racial voting discrimination) and Section 5 (requiring federal approval for voting law changes in discriminatory jurisdictions).
• 2.Three Supreme Court cases reshaped the VRA before Louisiana v. Callais. Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) established rules against racial gerrymandering and boosted Black representation; Shelby County v. Holder (2013) struck down Section 5 in a 5-4 decision, triggering a flood of restrictive voting laws; Allen v. Milligan (2023) surprisingly upheld Section 2 when Roberts and Kavanaugh joined the liberal minority.
• 3.Louisiana v. Callais centers on whether race-conscious redistricting itself violates the Constitution. After Louisiana's original 2022 map gave Black voters only one of six majority districts despite being one-third of the population, a remedial map (SB8) with two majority-Black districts was challenged by non-Black voters who argued it unconstitutionally used race as the sole factor.
• 4.Republican justices appear determined to eliminate Section 2's anti-gerrymandering protections but lack a unified rationale. Legal analysts noted justices started with their desired outcome and floated competing theories during oral arguments — using the 14th and 15th Amendments, created to protect minorities post-Reconstruction, as the vehicle to strip those same protections.
• 5.A ruling against the VRA could flip up to 19 House seats Republican and set minority representation back 60 years. The decision is expected before the 2026 midterms, and activists warn it would trigger nationwide mobilization as Black voters face the dismantling of a law that people died to secure.