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SCOTUS Hollows Out Voting Rights Law 04/30 06:14
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out a major pillar of the law
that had protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Lyndon B. Johnson knew the legislation he was
about to sign was momentous, one that took courage for certain members of
Congress to pass since the vote could cost them their seats.
To honor that, he took the unusual step of leaving the Oval Office and going
to Capitol Hill for the signing ceremony. It was Aug. 6, 1965, five months
after the "Bloody Sunday" attack on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama,
gave momentum to the bill that became known as the Voting Rights Act.
In the six decades since, it became one of the most consequential laws in
the nation's history, preventing discrimination against minorities at the
ballot box and helping to elect thousands of Black and Hispanic representatives
at all levels of government.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out a major pillar of the law
that had protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation.
It was a decision that came more than a decade after the court undermined
another key tenet of the law and led to restrictive voting laws in a number of
states. Voting and civil rights advocates were left fearful of what lies ahead
for minority communities.
"It means that you have entire communities that can go without having
representation," said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of the group Black Voters
Matter. "It is literally throwing us back to the Jim Crow era unapologetically,
and that's not exaggeration."
Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice's
Washington office, said the court's steady work to erode the Voting Rights Act,
culminating in Wednesday's decision, amounted to "burying it without the
funeral."
Hollowing out America's 'greatest legislative landmark'
The Supreme Court's ruling came in a congressional redistricting case out of
Louisiana after the state created a district that gave the state its second
Black representative to Congress.
It found that map to be an unconstitutional gerrymander because it took race
into account to draw the lines. In an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito,
the court's conservative majority said the provision of the Voting Rights Act
in question, called Section 2, was designed to protect voters from intentional
discrimination.
Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent said the bar to show intentional
discrimination is "an almost insurmountable barrier for challenges to any
voting rights issues to prove discrimination."
Voting rights experts said the ruling leaves the Voting Rights Act only a
shell of what it had been and will provide an open door for political mapmakers
at every level -- from local school districts to state legislatures to Congress
-- to undermine minority representation.
"We're witnessing the evisceration of America's greatest legislative
landmark at the hands of a far right Supreme Court," Democratic U.S. Rep.
Ritchie Torres of New York said.
Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, said the decision will allow
more aggressive "cracking and packing" of populations to dilute their votes,
"not just in congressional districts but also in state legislatures, county
commissions, school boards and city councils."
VRA was the key tool to fight dilution of voting strength
Voting rights experts said there is no doubting the law's impact over the
decades.
Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor at Howard University and the former
president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said there were about 1,500 Black
elected officials throughout the country in 1970. Today, that stands at more
than 10,000.
"And it isn't because of the goodness of people's hearts," she said.
She said that success was a direct result of Black communities, civil rights
activists and lawyers having the tools, through the Voting Rights Act, to file
challenges to efforts to diminish the voting strength of Black and Hispanic
voters. Most of the Section 2 cases have been over representation in local
governments.
It's not just the numbers.
A loss of representation, especially in state legislatures and Congress,
will translate into minority communities losing a voice on issues that matter
to them, such as healthcare, education and needed public works upgrades, said
Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's
Voting Rights Project.
"States can now point to partisan objectives to justify maps that strip
voters of color of representation, and federal courts will have little basis to
intervene," she said.
A steady erosion by the court, a future in doubt
The landmark law signed by Johnson 61 years ago had been amended over the
years, but the biggest change was in 2013, when the Supreme Court released its
ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. That decision essentially ended a provision
of the Voting Rights Act mandating the way states and local jurisdictions were
included on a list of those needing to get advance approval, or preclearance,
for voting-related changes.
That decision paved the way for mostly Republican states to pass a wave of
restrictive election legislation, especially after President Donald Trump, a
Republican, falsely claimed widespread fraud cost him reelection in 2020
against Democrat Joe Biden.
In a surprise ruling in 2023, the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 in a
redistricting case out of Alabama, a ruling that it essentially reversed on
Wednesday.
The question now is what comes next, for minority representatives and the
communities they represent.
In Louisiana, the decision puts Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields on the
endangered list. This isn't the first time redistricting has complicated
Fields' political plans. He served for two terms in the 1990s before the state
redrew his congressional district.
"I've been down this road before, you know, 33 years ago," he said.
Shomari Figures, who won the seat created in Alabama after the court's 2023
decision, said the decision doesn't make changes to that state's current
congressional districts, but it has made proving future racial discrimination
in redistricting cases significantly tougher.
"It will lead to states, primarily in the South, launching immediate efforts
to redraw districts in ways that will dilute the impact of Black voters and
drastically reduce the number of realistic opportunities to elect Black members
to Congress," he said.
Shalela Dowdy, an Alabama resident who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that
resulted in the creation of a new district now represented by Figures, said she
is worried the decision will lead to the rollback of the district created in
2023, which she said gave Black voters a greater voice.
"Putting it in the hands of the states on this level is dangerous," Dowdy
said. "There's just been a history of the states not doing the right thing
based off their state population."
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