Supreme Court Limits Voting Rights Act, Creates New Uncertainty Over Election Maps

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday to restrict how a key part of the Voting Rights Act can be used, further narrowing the scope of a major federal civil rights law.

For decades, Section 2 of the law — which bans racial discrimination in voting — has been interpreted to allow, and sometimes require, the use of racial data when drawing congressional districts to protect minority voters.

The court’s new decision, split along ideological lines, makes it less clear when and how states can consider race in redistricting. The case focuses on Louisiana, where two congressional districts were drawn with Black majorities.

Some advocacy groups had warned the court might go further, potentially allowing states to redraw maps in ways that could shift control of Congress. Republicans, meanwhile, have argued that using race in redistricting is unconstitutional.

The ruling leaves uncertainty for both sides, as redistricting remains a central issue ahead of upcoming elections.

The case, Louisiana v. Callais, also raises questions about whether Louisiana’s current map — which includes two majority-Black districts — will remain in place for this year’s midterms.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said there was not enough evidence of past racial discrimination to justify using race when drawing the new map.

“Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race,” Alito wrote. “That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander, and its use would violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”

Alito added that while direct proof of discrimination is not always required, the surrounding facts must still strongly suggest it occurred.

All three liberal justices joined a dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan, who emphasized her disagreement by reading parts of it aloud in court.

“Under the Court’s new view … a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power. Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic,” Kagan wrote. But she said what the majority billed as mere updates actually “eviscerate the law” and amount to the “demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

Under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court has already reduced several provisions of the roughly 60-year-old Voting Rights Act. Section 2 had remained one of its most significant provisions.

The dispute in this case centers on a change Congress made to the law in 1982. Before that, a 1980 Supreme Court ruling required proof that officials intentionally discriminated based on race, a standard lawmakers said would be difficult to meet.

Congress responded by updating the law to allow challenges based on the effects of district maps, even without direct proof of intent.

Courts have since faced ongoing questions about how to balance that standard with the Constitution’s requirement that all individuals be treated equally.

Kagan argued Wednesday that the majority “makes a nullity of the” pivotal 1982 amendment, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

Alito, however, said the court needed to clarify the law in part because of a 2019 ruling that allowed partisan gerrymandering claims to proceed separately. He suggested that some legal challenges now frame political disputes as racial discrimination.

“Failing to account for political considerations in redistricting … can allow plaintiffs to undo a State’s legitimate, non-racial decisions under the banner of Section 2,” Alito wrote, warning that plaintiffs may be “dressing their political-gerrymandering claims in racial garb.”

“If race and politics are not disentangled and a Section 2 claim is cynically used as a tool for advancing a partisan end, the VRA’s noble goal will be perverted,” he wrote.

The decision follows a long-running legal battle in Louisiana over Black representation in Congress. The Supreme Court first heard arguments in March 2025 but took the unusual step of rehearing the case again this term after not issuing a decision.

During the second round of arguments in October, the justices examined broader questions about how the Voting Rights Act should be applied going forward.