{"id":14845,"date":"2026-04-29T17:03:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14845"},"modified":"2026-04-29T17:03:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:03:56","slug":"u-s-supreme-court-weakens-key-pillar-of-voting-rights-act-opening-the-door-for-texas-to-redraw-political-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=14845","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Supreme Court weakens key pillar of Voting Rights Act, opening the door for Texas to redraw political maps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While the court did not strike down the provision entirely, Justice Elena Kagan said Wednesday\u2019s ruling made Section 2 of the VRA \u201call but a dead letter.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By<\/em> Eleanor Klibanoff<\/a><\/em>,<\/strong> Texas Tribune<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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The U.S. Supreme Court weakened but did not eliminate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act on Wednesday, making it harder to bring voter discrimination claims against electoral maps while stopping short of a widely anticipated full strikedown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ruling<\/a> will likely help Texas in its yearslong litigation over the electoral maps lawmakers drew in 2021, and opens the door to the state creating even more aggressively partisan maps going forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 6-3 decision narrows how courts may interpret Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the seminal civil rights legislation signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. This provision, seen as the cornerstone of the law, outlaws practices denying or abridging the right of any citizen to vote based on their race, including political maps that dilute the electoral power of voters of color. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upshot of Wednesday\u2019s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais is that plaintiffs will have to provide stronger proof to show that a state or county intentionally discriminated against voters of color. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said the four-prong test used to assess whether a state has diluted the vote for people of color needed to be updated for modern times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination,\u201d Alito wrote. He also noted that the court\u2019s 2019 decision to allow partisan gerrymandering \u201ccreates an incentive\u201d for litigants to repackage partisan claims under the guise of race-based challenges.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Wednesday\u2019s ruling did not eliminate Section 2 entirely, Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent said it \u201crenders Section 2 all but a dead letter\u201d that will \u201celiminate the lion\u2019s share\u201d of claims brought under that part of the Voting Rights Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Callais requirements have thus laid the groundwork for the largest reduction in minority representation since the era following Reconstruction,\u201d Kagan wrote. \u201cUnder cover of \u2018updat[ing]\u2019 and \u2018realign[ing]\u2019 this greatest of statutes, the majority makes a nullity of Section 2 and threatens a half-century\u2019s worth of gains in voting equality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas has had at least one of its political maps blocked under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act every decade since it went into effect. With this limitation narrowed significantly by the court, the state could push to reconsider its current congressional, state House and Senate, and State Board of Education maps, a possibility some Republicans have already teased<\/a>. The maps have been under litigation since they went into effect in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor of Mississippi has said he would call a special session to rapidly redraw the state\u2019s voting maps if the court struck down Section 2. Other states are expected to follow suit, especially amid the redistricting arms race Texas kicked off last summer<\/a>. But with Texas\u2019 unusually early primaries already in the rearview mirror, Lone Star lawmakers may wait until the next regular session begins in January to embark on any redraws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high court\u2019s decision set off a wave of outrage from Democrats. Texas House Democratic Caucus chair Gene Wu, D-Houston, said the ruling gave state legislatures a \u201cpermission slip\u201d to crack and pack<\/a> Black and Latino voters into districts \u201cwhere their voices won\u2019t matter.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAccording to this Court, a century of voter suppression in places like Texas and Louisiana is ancient history, no longer relevant to lawmaking and redistricting today,\u201d Wu said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike Smith, the president of House Majority PAC \u2014 House Democrats\u2019 top super PAC \u2014 said the ruling was a \u201cgreen light to rig House elections.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith Democrats on track to retake the majority in November, Republicans and their allies on the Court are scrambling to protect the rich and powerful instead of lowering costs and making life more affordable for American families,\u201d Smith said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brandon Herrera, the Republican nominee for Texas\u2019 23rd Congressional District, echoed the sentiment that the ruling will \u201clikely have MAJOR implications for the midterms,\u201d as he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocrats are going to have to scramble to protect seats they thought were safe, kneecapping the momentum they thought they had to take the House,\u201d Herrera said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While the court did not strike down the provision entirely, Justice Elena Kagan said Wednesday’s ruling made Section 2 of the VRA “all but a dead letter.” By Eleanor Klibanoff, Texas Tribune The U.S. Supreme […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,76],"tags":[94,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-14845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-slider","8":"category-texas","9":"tag-2026-midterms","10":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14848,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14845\/revisions\/14848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}