U.S. Supreme Court Guts a 60-Year-Old Voting Rights Act

After sixty years, the Voting Rights Act bent under a 6-to-3 vote. In 2024, Louisiana redrew its six congressional districts and added a second majority-Black district — the result of a lower-court order to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 statute born of the civil rights movement. Cleo Fields won the resulting seat. White voters immediately challenged the new map as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. On April 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court (Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109) struck the map down 6-3. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. declared that "the Constitution almost never permits discrimination on the basis of race," holding that compliance with the Voting Rights Act does not amount to the kind of compelling governmental interest needed to justify race-conscious redistricting. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. The ruling immediately reshaped the November midterm landscape. Louisiana's governor announced he would suspend the state's June primaries so lawmakers could draw a new map. Analysts say the central tool of the 60-year-old Voting Rights Act has, in effect, been pulled back.