Will High Court Protect Or Negate Black Voting Rights?

By Stacy M. Brown
Senior National Correspondent
Black Press USA

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could decide the future of voting rights in America. At the heart of Louisiana v. Callais is whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bars racial discrimination in voting, remains constitutional. The outcome could strip away one of the last remaining protections for Black voters since the Civil Rights Movement and embolden efforts already underway in states like North Carolina, where Republicans are pushing new gerrymandered maps that would silence voters and cement partisan control.

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have been accused of betraying the very communities they were elected to serve. Their proposed maps would diminish the influence of Black, Latino, and other minority voters while strengthening GOP power.

“Rigging the maps to go along with Trump’s scheme to hold onto power represents a new low for North Carolina Republicans, who have already spent cycles redrawing the maps to lock themselves into power,” Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Heather Williams said.

“The GOP’s willingness to silence voters is an extreme betrayal of the North Carolinians who elected them to serve. The DLCC has supported North Carolina Democrats for cycles as they’ve worked to protect voters from the disastrous GOP agenda, and we stand behind them as they stand up against this attack on democracy.”

The timing of North Carolina’s redistricting push is no coincidence. As the Supreme Court hears the Callais case, Louisiana’s attorney general and solicitor general are arguing that the state’s intentional creation of a second majority-Black congressional district violates the Constitution’s Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

They claim the Constitution “sees neither Black voters nor White voters; it sees only American voters,” a statement that voting rights advocates say erases the historical and ongoing racial discrimination that made the Voting Rights Act necessary in the first place.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the 2023 opinion upholding Section 2, now appears less certain. Observers warn that if Roberts or Justice Brett Kavanaugh changes course, the decision could dismantle Section 2 entirely and allow states to draw maps that silence minority voters with impunity.

The Center for American Progress warned that such a ruling could eliminate up to 19 congressional seats protected by the Voting Rights Act and displace nearly one-third of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Lakeisha Steele of FairVote called the erosion of the Voting Rights Act “a negation of the work of those who fought and died for the right to vote.” She recounted her family’s experiences in Mississippi under Jim Crow, where poll taxes and intimidation barred Black citizens from voting, and warned that the current assault on the Act threatens to undo generations of struggle for equality.

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Meanwhile, the DLCC has launched DemsOnRedistricting.com to fund efforts across battleground states to fight back against the GOP’s gerrymanders. For Democrats, the battle is not just about maps or elections but about the very foundation of democracy.

“The question now is whether America will remain a representative democracy and who will be allowed to participate in it,” Steele said. “The future of our representative democracy depends on it.”