The conservative-dominated Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s charter, a decision expected to have serious consequences for the representation of minorities in Congress, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics.
The decision is a blow to Democrats, who for several months have been embroiled in a dispute with Republicans over redistricting ahead of November’s midterm elections. In this “confrontation” President Donald Trump’s Republicans seem to be gaining ground, at least in the short term. Already as it was recently announced in Florida, where President Donald Trump has his stronghold outside the White House, the famous Mar-a-Lago, the state House approved the new electoral map that allows the Republicans to “take” (“change”) up to four seats.
By a vote of six to three—conservative justices over progressives—the Supreme Court concluded that the flagship law guaranteeing minority electoral representation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, did not require Louisiana to create a second electoral district in which African-American voters were the majority. Consequently, the drawing of districts on this southern state’s electoral map is “unconstitutional,” conservative Justice Samuel Alito said in reading the ruling he wrote on behalf of the majority.
But for liberal Justice Elena Kagan, “the Court’s decision would undermine the fundamental right to racial equality” in elections, a right granted by Congress under the law signed into law by then-President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.
For nearly a decade, the Court’s conservative majority has already significantly weakened the content of that landmark law, which was adopted at the height of the civil rights movement to prevent segregated Southern states from undermining African-American voting rights.
“dead letter”
For Alito, Section 2 of the law at issue in this particular case was written “to ensure adherence to the Constitution, not to conflict with it.” “Unfortunately, lower courts sometimes apply this Court’s Article 2 jurisprudence in a way that forces states to practice racial discrimination, which is prohibited by the Constitution,” he added, referring to the creation of majority-minority constituencies.
Kagan, for her part, said that with today’s decision the 1965 law becomes a “dead letter” and “the consequences will be serious.”
At the heart of the case was the practice of redrawing electoral districts in a state, often with geographic boundaries bordering on the absurd, so that one party would emerge victorious, securing more seats in the House of Representatives.
With the midterm elections just months away, the fallout from the Supreme Court decision may be limited to Louisiana. But in the future, districts in which the majority of voters are African-American (traditionally, they support the Democratic party), may be redrawn in states controlled by Republicans.
Indicative of the decision’s significance was the fact that Justices Alito and Kagan (who dissented) both read excerpts from their opinions, unusual for the Supreme Court.
The racial factor
Republican officials in Louisiana, a state where one-third of the population is black, were forced by a court order to create a second electoral district where African-American voters are in the majority. A group of white voters challenged the new electoral map, considering it discriminatory, appealed to the courts and was vindicated because it was judged that the “racial factor” dominated the drawing of the district.
The case ended up in the Supreme Court which invalidated the new electoral map as unconstitutional.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer condemned the Court’s decision to limit districting favoring minorities, calling it a “horrific blow” to the landmark 1965 law. “A law written with the blood, sweat and sacrifice of Americans who marched, fought and died for the right to vote and to prevent racial discrimination, is once again weakened,” he said in his statement.
What former president Barack Obama commented
In this context, the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, intervened with an official announcement, arguing that the decision of the Supreme Court “essentially weakens a key pillar” of the Voting Rights Act.
As he noted, the decision enables state legislatures to proceed with gerrymandering in a way that “systematically weakens and limits the electoral power of racial minorities,” as long as it is done under the guise of “partisan expediency” and not as explicit “racial discrimination.”
Obama also argued that the decision is yet another example of how the majority of the current Supreme Court appears determined to abandon its critical role: to ensure equal participation of citizens in democracy and to protect the rights of minority groups against excessive interference by the majority.
However, the former president emphasized that such setbacks can be overcome. That, he said, “will only happen if citizens across the country who believe in democratic values continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers — not just in upcoming midterm elections or high-stakes contests, but in every election and at every level of government.”
