WASHINGTON (AP) —The Supreme Court has weakened a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has helped root out racial discrimination in voting for more than half a century in a case concerning a Black majority congressional district in Louisiana.
The court’s conservative majority found that the district, represented by Democrat Cleo Fields, relied too heavily on race. Chief Justice John Roberts had described the district as a “snake” that stretches more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) to link parts of the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said the Supreme Court “has humiliated and dismantled the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and every man and woman who marched, bled, and died for Black Americans to have an equal voice at the ballot box.”
The plaintiffs argued that Louisiana’s second Black-majority congressional district, drawn to correct a previously discriminatory map, has an unconstitutional racial basis and did not follow the standards for drawing a district, including compactness.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act, the centerpiece legislation of the Civil Rights Movement, succeeded in opening the ballot box to Black Americans and reducing persistent discrimination in voting. Nearly 70 of the 435 congressional districts are protected by Section 2, election law experts estimate.
It’s unclear how much is left of Section 2, but the ruling could open the door for Republican-led states to eliminate Black and Latino electoral districts that tend to favor Democrats and affect the balance of power in Congress. President Donald Trump has already touched off a nationwide redistricting battle to boost Republican chances.
Here's the latest:
Congressional Black Caucus members vow to fight back
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus pledged to fight back after the Supreme Court decision and called for the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
Rep. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat who chairs the caucus, told reporters that the decision allows politicians to “choose their voters instead of the other way around.”
“The Supreme Court has opened the door to a coordinated attack on Black voters across the country,” Clarke said. “This is an outright power grab.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also of New York, said the decision came from “the Trump court” in “an effort to suppress the vote and rig the midterm elections and beyond.”
“At this moment in time, we’re urging everyone to summon the courage, the character, and the conviction of those heroes like John Lewis and Rosa Parks and so many others upon whose shoulders we stand,” Jeffries said.
The top Republican in Tennessee’s Senate warns of ‘logistical challenges’ to immediate redistricting
Tennessee lawmakers need to discuss whether it’s feasible to redistrict in light of the new court ruling, Senate Speaker Randy McNally said, since deadlines to file paperwork to run for office have passed, and candidates have already entered their races. The primary elections are Aug. 6.
The state’s current map is “strong, fair and legal” and has survived court challenges, McNally said in a statement.
Kentucky Gov. Beshear says the court decision underscores the importance of having Democratic governors
While much of the attention in Washington this year is on the battle for control of Congress, there are 36 governors races on the ballot in November.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the Supreme Court’s decision is a reminder of the significance of those races, since so many voting laws are crafted at the state level.
“One of the best ways to fight back is to elect more Democratic governors – who are on the frontlines of protecting and expanding fundamental freedoms and democracy in our states,” Beshear said in a statement. “We have 36 opportunities to do that this year and rulings like this show that the stakes have never been higher.”
Beshear is the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, a group focused on electing Democrats as state leaders.
Alabama Democrat whose district was created by a court order slams the decision
Rep. Shomari Figures, whose district was court-ordered after judges found Black voting power was diluted, said the ruling makes future discrimination claims harder to prove.
He warned it could prompt Southern states to redraw maps in ways that weaken Black voters’ influence. Alabama’s current map remains in place under a court order through 2030, although the state is appealing.
House GOP campaign chairman says redrawing maps is up to the states
Rep. Richard Hudson welcomed the court’s decision. “I was glad to see it come down,” he told reporters at the U.S. Capitol.
But the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee stopped short of saying he would encourage states to reconsider congressional district maps before the November election.
“I don’t know what the implications are going be for the fall,” the North Carolina congressman said.
“It’s pretty late,” he said. “We’ll see. It’s up to governors and legislators.”
Louisiana governor says the state is weighing its next steps
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said the state attorney general and legislative leadership are discussing “what our options are.” He said it could take at least a day to fully assess the high court’s decision.
In a post on the social platform X, the governor — who has close ties to Trump — said the ruling affirms that states can draw districts “for political reasons.” He said federal courts cannot require “race-based redistricting” or treat what he called partisan disputes as violations of the Voting Rights Act.
Obama says the ruling ‘effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act’
The nation’s first Black president issued a statement decrying the ruling as “just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.”
“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome,” Obama, a Democrat, continued. “But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers.”
Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn says the ruling will fuel redistricting fights and weaken Black representation
The South Carolina congressional district held by 85-year-old Clyburn, who for a time was the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, has been a focus for Republicans angling to pick up an additional seat.
Clyburn said in a statement that the Supreme Court had taken “a giant step backward,” one that “threatens to send our country deeper into the thicket of never-ending redistricting fights, with repeated aggressive map redraws, protracted legal battles, and relentless partisan tugs-of-war.”
South Carolina’s 2022 map, which packs Democrats into Clyburn’s district, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2024. Republicans have since tried to redraw the seat to flip it.
Trump says more districts should be redrawn after Wednesday’s ruling
The president said the decision, which could pave the way for other districts to be redrawn in the Republicans’ favor, is the “kind of ruling I like.”
“Some states don’t need to redraw, and some do,” Trump said, while noting that generally, he would want Republican state officials to revise the congressional maps.
Still, he wasn’t initially aware of what had happened. When asked by a reporter for his reaction to the decision, Trump asked when the ruling had come out.
“I’ve been with the astronauts,” he rationalized. “I’ve been with contractors because we’re trying to get the ballroom built.”
Georgia senator calls the decision a ‘huge step backwards’
Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is Black, says he would not be in Congress without the Voting Rights Act and slammed the Supreme Court’s decision as a blow for racial justice.
“Make no mistake, this ruling harkens back to the darkest days of the Jim Crow era,” he told reporters.
Americans, he said, are being “further squeezed out of their democracy.”
Tennessee Republicans consider their options
Asked about the prospect of trying to redistrict the state’s Memphis-centered Democratic seat, Tennessee’s Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton said in a written statement, “We are reviewing the recent opinion as I have conversations with the White House and other individuals.”
Alabama attorney general wants to apply the Supreme Court ruling to his state’s redistricting
Attorney General Steve Marshall said he wants to ensure Alabama’s congressional maps reflect voters’ will, not what he called an unconstitutional racial quota system.
The state is appealing a federal order requiring the state to continue using a court-drawn map with an additional district where Black voters are a majority or near it.
Marshall called Wednesday’s decision a “watershed moment” that means states “cannot be forced to gerrymander by race.”
He added that the high court recognized progress in the South and said laws from an earlier era no longer reflect current conditions.
A Black voter from New Orleans says he’s upset by the ruling
Thomas Johnson, a Black man from New Orleans who was visiting Louisiana’s Capitol on Wednesday, said he specifically feared the possibility that Republicans could redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that dismantles predominately Black districts.
“I feel like this is an embarrassing attack upon the minorities, particularly the Black community,” who he feels have little say in Washington.
Johnson is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, one of two Black Democrats from Louisiana in Congress.
“We are going to do all we can and continue fighting so our voices are heard,” Johnson said. “That’s all we want, to be heard.”
Louisiana’s other Democratic congressman says his seat isn’t safe either
While the Supreme Court ruled on the district represented by Rep. Cleo Fields, the other Democratic member of Louisiana’s U.S. House delegation is concerned about the fate of his seat, too.
“The reality is our maps were drawn together,” said Rep. Troy Carter, whose district includes New Orleans. “So that means if they’re all thrown out as unconstitutional, then the likelihood that new maps would be drawn that would in fact not only impact Congressman Fields but also impact me as well.”
Rights groups aren’t mincing words about the Supreme Court decision
Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said the decision is a blow to American democracy and one that will further erode trust in the Supreme Court among diverse populations.
“It’s a day of loss of any remnant or modicum of credibility of this Supreme Court to rise above partisan politics,” Nelson said. “It has elevated the principle of partisanship and politics over the right to vote.”
Wednesday’s decision is a “profound betrayal of the civil rights movement,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. Minority communities won’t just potentially lose a seat in Congress, she said, they’ll lose a voice on issues like healthcare, education and infrastructure.
“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 voting rights advocate doesn’t know if the ruling will spur redistricting this year
David Becker, the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the ruling will allow lawmakers to reduce the power of minority voters — at least eventually.
“How it will affect 2026, I don’t know,” Becker said Wednesday on a call with reporters. “It could be open season now, but we’re also running out of time.”
Obama’s attorney general says this Supreme Court has earned an infamous place in history
Eric Holder, the former Obama-era U.S. attorney general whose administration lost a crucial voting rights battle in 2013, said Wednesday’s ruling amounted to “Supreme Court sanctioned racial and partisan gerrymandering.”
“The Court today ensures that it will be remembered as one of the most destructive and deeply irresponsible Courts in the history of our nation,” Holder said in a statement.
“It should not be lost on anyone,” he added, “that the Roberts court makes this decision at a time when Republican leaders across the country are foaming at the mouth to draw the American people out of a meaningful say in our elections.”
After leaving public service, Holder formed the National Redistricting Foundation to protect voting rights and challenge gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts.
Candidate for Tennessee governor calls for redistricting after Supreme Court decision
Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is running for governor this year, called on social media for the GOP-supermajority state Legislature to reconvene and draw Tennessee’s only Democratic congressional seat to favor a pickup for Republicans.
The district centers on the majority-Black city of Memphis.
One top Georgia Republican calls for immediate redistricting, even with voting underway
Redrawing Georgia’s maps for the 2026 elections would be difficult because early voting is already underway for the May 19 party primaries, in advance of the November election.
A spokesperson for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and state Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to queries about immediate redistricting. State Senate Minority Harold Jones II, an Augusta Democrat, said he’s unsure of the prospects of quick action.
But one leading GOP candidate to replace Kemp urged the governor to act immediately, which could protect Republican power even if Georgia Democrats make gains this fall.
“Democrats nationally are trying to redistrict their way back to power, and what happened in Virginia is just the tip of the spear,” businessman Rick Jackson said in a statement. “There is no time to waste. Georgia must act now to ensure secure elections in Georgia and counter the Democrats’ national assault on our elections.”
Hakeem Jeffries slams the Supreme Court decision as ‘far right extremists’ thinking
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries accused the Supreme Court of being “far right extremists” and of voter suppression being “a way of life” for Trump and Republicans, in a strongly worded statement on social media.
“Republicans know they cannot win a free and fair election in November and so they are desperate to rig it. We will never let them succeed,” the Democrat wrote.
Jeffries has previously claimed Trump makes power grabs when it comes to voting.
When Trump signed an executive order in March to create a nationwide list of verified eligible voters and to restrict mail-in voting, Jeffries said it would make voting unnecessarily difficult of communities of color, people with disabilities and other key demographics.
King family ‘deeply troubled’ by Supreme Court decision
Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and his wife Arndrea Waters King said in a statement that the Supreme Court decision “further weakened the Voting Rights Act.”
“This decision silences the voices of millions of voters of color by undermining the purpose of the VRA – securing and protecting the political rights of Black and Brown communities across the country,” they said. “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that voting rights are the foundation of our entire democratic system. Without them, we are a democracy in name only. “
The couple are the founders of a civil rights organization called the Drum Major Institute.
Congressional Black Caucus says the Supreme Court has ‘signed the death certificate of the Voting Rights Act’
The 60 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is currently made up of all Democrats, said the ruling erased “decades of Black progress.”
“Republicans now have the ability to move forward with a nationwide scheme to rig congressional maps in their favor — to manufacture more districts for themselves by eliminating majority-Black districts, while stripping away the ability to challenge those racist, anti-Black maps in court,” the group said.
The caucus added this could open the door for huge redistricting changes in the South and vowed to initiate “any measure necessary” to find a legislative remedy, and called for a vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
Inside the Supreme Court as the decision was announced
The already quiet courtroom went silent when Chief Justice John Roberts said Justice Samuel Alito would be reading the majority opinion.
Members of the audience listened raptly as he read, waiting to hear the depths of the Section 2 decision. Some in the audience nodded as Justice Elena Kagan read the dissent and said the majority had effectively finished a yearslong pursuit of the Voting Rights Act.
A Black voter in Alabama reacts to the court’s decision
Shalela Dowdy in Mobile, Alabama, said she’s worried the decision will lead to the rollback of an Alabama congressional district created in 2023, which she said gave previously ignored voters a seat at the table.
“It’s a setback. 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.”
Dowdy, who is Black, was a plaintiff in a lawsuit that resulted in the creation of the new district, now represented by Rep. Shomari Figures.
She added that they are going to have to battle in court, and at the ballot box, to maintain representation: “The fight continues. You can’t get comfortable.”
Rev. Al Sharpton says the decision is a ’bullet in the heart of the voting rights movement'
“The Supreme Court has not just weakened a law, it has humiliated and dismantled the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and every man and woman who marched, bled, and died for Black Americans to have an equal voice at the ballot box,” Sharpton, the president of the National Action Network, said in a statement.
“This ruling does not just dishonor the generation that marched, it steals from the generation that hasn’t voted yet,” Sharpton added in the statement. “Black children growing up in this country deserve the same protections their grandparents bled for.”
He called on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act through federal legislation, a task that has proved elusive while Capitol Hill has been narrowly split between Democrats and Republicans.
Louisiana’s Republican attorney general applauds the decision
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she will work with fellow Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-dominated Legislature to “provide guidance as we move forward to adopt a constitutionally compliant map.”
“The Supreme Court has ended Louisiana’s long-running nightmare of federal courts coercing the state to draw a racially discriminatory map,” Murrill wrote. “That was always unconstitutional—and this is a seismic decision reaffirming equal protection under our nation’s laws.”
Republican redistricting group hails the decision
The ruling is expected to be an enormous boost for Republican efforts to expand their number of winnable seats in the House of Representatives and state legislatures.
The GOP has long complained that Democrats turned the Voting Rights Act’s protections into a partisan weapon to gain seats.
“For decades the left has spent hundreds of millions of dollars seeking to divide Americans along racial lines in a cynical pursuit of partisan power masquerading as civil rights,” said Adam Kincaid, the National Republican Redistricting Trust’s executive director, in a statement. “Today’s decision rebukes that divisive and unconstitutional effort.”
The decision will likely reignite legal battles over congressional districts in southern states including Alabama
A federal court in 2023 ordered the creation of a new near-majority Black district which led to the election of Alabama’s second Black congressional representative.
Alabama is under a court order to use the new map through the rest of the decade, but the state appealed to the Supreme Court. Alabama has argued the court-drawn map is an illegal racial gerrymander.
Alabama House Speaker Pro Tempore Chris Pringle, a Republican, said he is hopeful that the Louisiana ruling means justices will rule in favor of Alabama in that appeal, eventually clearing the way for Alabama to draw its own map.
“I do believe the ruling today vindicates the state’s argument that the court illegally racially gerrymandered the state in its ruling,” Pringle said.