In a 6-3 decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s second majority Black congressional district, ruling it an unconstitutional gerrymander.
The ruling has significant implications for future applications of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which activists have long used to push for new electoral lines that protect the voting power of historically disenfranchised voting groups, including Black voters.
The Louisiana district had been redrawn to address complaints that the original map violated Section 2 of the VRA.
The NAACP called the high court’s ruling a “devastating blow” to the landmark civil rights legislation.
Here’s what you need to know about this act:
A landmark civil rights law
President Lyndon Johnson signed the VRA into law on Aug. 6, 1965, during a time of immense advocacy from activists within the Civil Rights Movement to ensure fair voting practices at the ballot box.
The law opened the door for thousands of voters to go to the polls during a time when Black voters faced significant barriers to voting, including poll taxes, literacy tests and voter intimidation and harassment.
The 1965 law outlawed literacy tests and required southern states with a history of voter discrimination to obtain federal approval before making changes to their voting laws.
The VRA had a significant impact, with around 250,000 new Black voters enrolling to vote by the end of the year of its enactment. Nine out of 13 southern states had over 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote by the end of 1966, according to the National Archives.
Section 2 of the VRA
The second section of this act has been used to justify redistricting efforts aimed at protecting the voting power of minority groups.
This provision specifically outlaws any voting practice that creates hurdles to voters “on account of race or color.”
The Justice Department includes a protection against discriminatory practices based on “membership in a language minority group” in its description of the act.
While the Supreme Court’s Wednesday ruling does not completely eliminate Section 2 of this act, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent that it leaves this provision “all but a dead letter.”
Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights icon and president of the National Action Network, called the high court’s decision a “bullet in the heart of the voting rights movement.”
“The Supreme Court has not just weakened a law, it has humiliated and dismantled the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and every man and woman who marched, bled, and died for Black Americans to have an equal voice at the ballot box,” Sharpton said in a statement.
Legal challenges
The VRA has faced several legal challenges since its enactment in 1965. The Supreme Court upheld the act’s constitutionality in two cases in 1966 and 1969.
The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the VRA in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. This provision applied to the federal oversight of voting rules in nine states.
