Supreme Court To Review If Race-Based Districting Is Constitutional

The Supreme Court expanded the scope of a Louisiana congressional redistricting dispute that has been pending for months, ordering new briefing on a legal question that brings further scrutiny to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The Court announced on Friday that it will review Louisiana v. Callais, a case challenging the constitutionality of race-based congressional districts. A ruling against this could prompt similar actions in other states.

The court has issued an order asking the lawyers to address whether Louisiana, in its efforts to comply with the 1965 law that protects minority voting rights, has violated the Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments. These amendments were enacted after the Civil War to ensure that black people are treated equally under the law.

If the court determines that the state violated the Constitution, it would imply that states cannot use the justification of complying with the Voting Rights Act when they consider race during the map-drawing process, as they are currently allowed to do.

Richard L. Hasen is an American legal scholar and law professor at UCLA. He specializes in legislation, election law, and campaign finance. In his opinion, the order, “appears to put the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act into question.”

The American Constitution is meant to be color blind. If previous laws overstepped those bounds, even in an attempt to rectify past injustices, the over-adjustment should be corrected. The Democrats are panicking that with the current conservative majority of the Supreme Court, they may rule against gerrymandering based on race. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled against a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in a case from Alabama, and it further weakened the Act in a 2021 case from Arizona.

The current Louisiana map includes two majority-Black districts for the first time in years.

The complex case originated from a legal dispute regarding a map created by the state legislature following the 2020 census. This map included only one Black-majority district out of a total of six districts, even though approximately one-third of the state’s population is black.

Civil rights organizations, including the Legal Defense Fund, successfully challenged the boundaries of electoral districts, arguing that the Voting Rights Act mandates the creation of two majority-black districts. However, after the new map was established, a group of voters who identified as “non-African American,” led by Phillip Callais and eleven other plaintiffs, filed another lawsuit claiming that the new map violated the 14th Amendment.

A ruling that changes the current map could allow Republicans to gain an additional congressional seat in Louisiana. The state has two majority-Black districts, both represented by Democrats, while Republicans hold the other four districts.

However, if the court issues a broad ruling that limits or prohibits the use of race-based redistricting, the consequences will extend well beyond Louisiana.

Christian Heiens, political analyst, election modeler, and co-host of “Making the Argument” podcast, put it this way in a post on X:

“I cannot stress to you enough how earth-shattering it would be for the Supreme Court to strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The electoral cornerstone of the Postwar Liberal Consensus would be gone overnight, and with it, the Democratic Party’s ability to contest the House of Representatives as we know it.

Between this and the potential mid-decade redistricting in a few other GOP-controlled states, Democrats would not be able to flip back the House of Representatives even if they ruthlessly gerrymandered every Republican out of California.”

The Democrats have been playing the race card in one way or another for decades. Using it to increase their voting base is standard operating procedure for their party. Falling back on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been an easy way to manipulate votes. It’s time to eliminate this DEI fulcrum of leverage that the Democrats have utilized for far too long.