The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday over a core provision of the Voting Rights Act that is designed to protect racial minorities.
Lawyers for Louisiana and the Trump administration will try to persuade the justices to wipe away the state’s second majority Black congressional district and make it much harder, if not impossible, to take account of race in redistricting.
The current lineup of justices previously upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, its most important remaining element, in a 2023 case that required Alabama to draw an additional congressional district to benefit Black voters.
Now the conservative-led court is poised to rehear a similar case this time out of Louisiana that could modify or undo that decision.
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Early crowd indicates big interest
The crowd outside the Supreme Court before the Voting Rights Hearing was already larger than other crowds long before the doors opened.
Faye Gaskin, 64, with the Mt. Moriah AME Church in Annapolis said she was “here fighting for my grandchildren and the generations to come. If we do nothing, it’ll be a loss. I won’t be able to look myself in the mirror. Much blood has been shed and many lives lost for this.”
Her fellow church goer Linda Nevils, 72, said she was there to try to protect the vote “for our people. Everything comes from that. Where we eat, where we live, where we work.”
The impact reaches beyond congressional districts
The impact of the section of the Voting Right Acts being argued before the Supreme Court isn’t just in how to draw the boundaries for election districts. It’s often whether to draw them for local offices.
J. Morgan Kousser, a retired history professor at the California Institute of Technology who works on the issue, has tallied 1,363 cases since 1965 where plaintiffs using Section 2 have prevailed in court or reached settlements.
Of those, 937 have been to change at-large elections for local offices to make them district-based. That’s a way to increase minority representation for seats on town councils, school boards, sanitation districts and other government bodies.
The court is hearing the case for a second time
A second round arguments is rare at the Supreme Court and can presage a big change in the law.
The court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case that opened the floodgates to independent spending in political campaigns came after two rounds of arguments.
What to know:
1. What’s at stake? Section 2 is the primary way that plaintiffs can challenge discriminatory election practices. It holds greater weight after the court in 2013 ruled to remove another section requiring certain states with a history of discriminatory voting practices to get federal permission before changing election laws. It will be harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act without Section 2.
2. What’s the argument? The plaintiffs argue that a Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana, drawn to correct a previously discriminatory map, has an unconstitutional racial basis and does not follow the standards for drawing a district, including compactness.
3. What could the court decide? It ranges. The court could send the case back down to a lower court with instructions to draw a new map, or it could say that Section 2’s reliance on racial considerations is out of line with the 14th and 15th Amendments. This would put congressional districts that have resulted from Section 2 cases in jeopardy.
Arguments will go well beyond the allotted hour
Since returning to the courtroom following the Covid-19 pandemic, the justices have routinely gone beyond the time set aside for arguments.
With questions for four lawyers, the session could even stretch into early afternoon. Arguments will begin shortly after 10 a.m., Eastern time.
Bessent says the shutdown is costing the economy $15B per day
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made the comment at the CNBC Invest in America Forum on Wednesday morning.
“The only thing slowing us down here is the shutdown,” he said.
Ruling for Louisiana could affect wider re-districting fight
The outcome of the case could have ramifications for an ongoing battle on congressional redistricting that’s already playing out across the nation, starting after Trump urged Texas and other GOP-controlled states to redraw the districts so the party could keep control of the House.
If the court sides with Louisiana, more than a dozen districts could be re-drawn in a way that could benefit Republicans, the Democratically aligned voting-rights groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter have estimated.
The court is expected to make its decision by June, which could lead some states to speedily redraw districts before the midterm elections.
