The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act – making it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law – in a victory for Louisiana Republicans and President Donald Trump’s administration.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative members, blocked an electoral map that had given Louisiana a second Black-majority U.S. congressional district. With November congressional elections looming, the decision could prompt Republican-led states to seek to redraw electoral maps in an effort to put at risk U.S. House of Representatives seats considered safely Democratic.
The court’s liberal justices, civil rights leaders, Democratic lawmakers and some legal experts denounced the decision as severely undermining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress enacted to bar electoral maps that would result in diluting the clout of minority voters.
“I love it,” Trump told reporters after hearing of the decision, adding that he thinks that Republican-led states would now want to reconfigure their voting maps.
Section 2 had gained greater significance as a bulwark against racial discrimination in voting after the Supreme Court in 2013 gutted a different part of the Voting Rights Act. Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates.
“This is a devastating and profound step backwards for American Democracy,” Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock wrote on social media.
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Wednesday’s ruling was authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by his five fellow conservative justices. The three liberal justices dissented.
REDISTRICTING BATTLES
The ruling was issued amid a battle unfolding in Republican-governed and Democratic-led states around the country involving the redrawing of electoral maps to change the composition of U.S. House districts for partisan advantage ahead of the November elections. Trump and his fellow Republicans hope to retain the party’s razor-thin majoritie
