The Supreme Court’s Latest Blow to Black Voters’ Rights

Illustration by Mark Harris; Source photographs from Getty Save this story Save this story Save this story Save this story When the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, in late April, gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it insisted, unconvincingly, that it was merely offering an “update,” clarifying the precise standards for determining violations of the law. Last week, the Court issued an unsigned order in a long-running case involving congressional redistricting in Alabama that exposed that obvious fiction. The four-page order, issued on the Court’s emergency, or shadow, docket, makes clear that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—which is supposed to protect against voting procedures, such as drawing skewed district lines, that have the intent or effect of discriminating against racial minorities—is a dead letter. There remains no feasible route, under the Voting Rights Act or the Constitution, to challenging district lines that prevent Black voters from electing candidates of their choice.

For years, Alabama had balked at obeying a series of orders, including from the Supreme Court itself, to insure that its Black voters have a voice in how they are governed. The conservative Justices rewarded this strategy, rebuking not Alabama but the lower court for not being deferential enough to a state that had repeatedly demonstrated its determination to delay and obstruct. And, despite repeated lectures about the danger of changing voting rules too close to an election, the Court in effect invited state legislatures to do precisely that. It has produced a system impenetrably rigged against the voters that the law was supposed to protect.

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