The U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6-3 Louisiana v. Callais opinion, holding that race-based gerrymandering of congressional districts to purportedly comply with § 2 of the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”, 52 USC § 10301) is not a tailored, compelling government interest and is therefore unconstitutional. Judge Samuel Alito wrote the opinion, which simply applied existing laws and case law. It has not overturned any previous cases. Justice Elena Kagan disagreed.
§ 2 prohibits states from denying or abridging “the right of every citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color,” and that violations are shown if “on the whole of the circumstances” the “political processes” are not “equally open to participation.” § 2 also provides “no right to elect members of a protected class in numbers equal to their share of the population.” Accordingly, the VRA guarantees all voters an equal opportunity to vote while allowing states to draw their electoral districts based on compactness, contiguity, geographic boundaries, political subdivisions, the protection of incumbents, etc. – but not on the basis of race.
The Callais respondents argued that enforcing § 2 required Louisiana to create an additional race-based, predominantly black congressional district. The question before the court was whether compliance with § 2 is a tailored, compelling government interest that meets the highest level of constitutional analysis known as “strict scrutiny.” The court said no, stating that “allowing race to play a role in government decision-making constitutes a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context” and that “the Constitution almost never permits the federal government or a state to discriminate on the basis of race,” such as when it is used inappropriately to draw maps that intentionally dilute or otherwise harm minority voters.
SUPREME COURT RULES ON IMPORTANT VOTING RIGHTS DECIDE AS REPUBLICANS AND Democrats Wage redistributive war
Unfortunately, the immediate, knee-jerk reaction from the traditional media and many partisan commentators was to falsely claim that the court is “racist” or that it is “weakening,” “depleting,” or “obliterating” the VRA. An objective analysis of Callais, the underlying facts and the precursor cases refutes these inaccurate claims.
For example, Justice Kagan wrote the majority opinion in Cooper v. Harris (2017), joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Clarence Thomas, holding that North Carolina unconstitutionally used race as “the dominant factor” in creating a black majority. districts. Judge Kagan also wrote that litigants must “disentangle race and politics and prove that the former determines the lines of a district.” Callais is a natural outgrowth of Cooper and does not contradict this.
In Allen v. Milligan (2023), Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority/plurality opinion that struck a redistricting map in Alabama that diluted Black voters and thus violated § 2. The court wrote that “there is a difference” between being aware of racial considerations and being motivated by them “…the former is permissible; the latter is usually not.’ The court, citing Cooper, also wrote that when drawing district lines, it is inappropriate for “race-neutral considerations” to come into play only “after the race-based decision.” [already] was made.” Furthermore, the court stated that “coercion [racially] proportional representation is unlawful and inconsistent with the court’s approach in implementing § 2.”
As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor warned in her majority opinion in Shaw v. Reno (1993), “Racial gerrymandering, even for reparative purposes, can balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to move us further away from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters—a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to strive.”
Much of the overly harsh reaction against Callais seems to assume that voters, especially minority voters, automatically vote for candidates of their own race, an assumption that itself could be considered racist. In fact, it is incorrect that so-called “majority-minority districts” are absolutely necessary to have minority representation. For example, according to the U.S. Solicitor General’s office, there are currently about 60 Black members of Congress, but only 15 districts that are majority Black.
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The baseless attacks on the court may stem from partisan concerns that certain states with Republican-controlled legislatures might now seek to redraw their congressional districts in response to Democratic-controlled California and Virginia creating their new skewed Democratic districts that eliminated numerous Republican districts, which in turn was a response to Texas. This is unlikely to be a moot issue; the court held in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) that partisan gerrymandering claims are not judicial because they raise political questions beyond the jurisdiction of the federal court. Furthermore, time is very short for any state to begin the process of redrawing its congressional districts now before the 2026 midterm elections, especially for states that have already begun their primaries and/or are already eligible for early voting.
In Callais, the Supreme Court followed the existing law and ruled correctly. The court’s decision is well-founded and modest. The law still requires citizens to have an equal opportunity to vote and still prohibits the denial or abridgement of their right to vote based on race or color. This includes race-based vote dilution, literacy tests, polling, etc. Callais affirmed the plain text and original intent of the VRA, as well as existing case law; race-based quotas and “proportional representation” are prohibited, as in court case law on college admissions. Furthermore, they do not require disparate impact analyzes nor so-called majority-minority districts, and challengers to redistricting plans may not hide or list partisan political complaints as race-based § 2 complaints.
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