The Fifteenth Amendment’s promise of racial equality at the ballot box is hanging by a thread, and the Supreme Court is about to cut it, making minority voters even more vulnerable to the very discrimination the Constitution was meant to prevent. In an upcoming decision, the Court could open the door to a future where minority communities are silenced by design — stripped of political power through maps and laws that no longer have to pretend to be fair.
In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court is considering whether Louisiana’s effort to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), a law that bans racial discrimination in voting, is itself unconstitutional. After a federal court ruled that the state’s original congressional map illegally diluted Black voting power, lawmakers created a second majority-Black district to fix it. Now, opponents argue that even considering race to correct that injustice amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. If the Court agrees, the implications couldn’t be more dangerous.
To be clear, if the court strikes down Louisiana’s congressional maps, it would have devastating consequences:
- It would make compliance with the VRA nearly impossible, opening the door to widespread disenfranchisement of voters of color.
- It would give states a green light to divide and dilute minority voting power, stripping communities of their ability to elect candidates who represent them.
- It would gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, effectively dismantling one of the last remaining tools to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment’s promise of racial equality at the ballot box.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a transformative piece of legislation aimed not only at prohibiting racial discrimination in voting but also at proactively protecting the voting rights of racial minorities. It provided a robust framework for challenging discriminatory practices and required federal oversight in areas with a history of voter suppression. However, the VRA no longer holds the powerful safeguards it once did. Over time, it has been systematically weakened by decisions from the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
As we await what could be the Supreme Court’s final blow to the Voting Rights Act, it feels not only necessary — but urgent — to reflect on how we got to this point.
Dismantling Voter Safeguards
The most consequential blow to the VRA came with the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder. At the heart of the case was Section 5 of the VRA, which required jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to obtain federal approval, or “preclearance,” before making any changes to their voting laws. Congress had reauthorized Section 5 in 2006 with overwhelming bipartisan support after extensive hearings showed that racial discrimination in voting persisted. Yet, in a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula that determined which jurisdictions were subject to preclearance, rendering Section 5 effectively useless.
The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, claimed that the country had changed, that the targeted discriminatory practices of the past were no longer in use, and that federal oversight was no longer justified. But this reasoning ignored both the historical context of the VRA and the immediate real-world consequences of the ruling. As the late Justice Ginsburg wrote in dissent, it was the equivalent of “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm.” Sure enough, several states previously covered by Section 5 subsequently enacted new voting laws that disproportionately burdened minority voters, including voter ID requirements and polling place closures. The implementation of these policies has had lasting effects.
In 2012, just before the Court’s decision, the turnout gap between white and minority voters was narrowing in pre-clearance-covered states. However, since then, the progress has reversed. By 2020, states like Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas saw the white/Black turnout gap widen significantly, with white turnout surpassing Black turnout by more than 15 percentage points. This sharp reversal is no coincidence.
When voters in these states are silenced, the entire nation feels the impact: Congressional representation shifts, presidential outcomes tilt, and our government grows less reflective of the people it claims to serve. What happens in one state doesn’t stay there; it reshapes the balance of power for all of us. By ignoring the continuing patterns of voter suppression — and deferring to states with documented histories of discrimination — the Court elevated abstract notions of “state sovereignty” over the practical protection of citizens’ voting rights.
Despite its professed commitment to history, tradition, and constitutional text, the Court’s ruling deviated sharply from all three. It was undoubtedly a partisan decision that undermined one of the most successful civil rights laws in our country’s history.
Making Discrimination Even Easier
Nearly a decade after Shelby County, the Supreme Court again weakened the VRA — this time targeting Section 2, the provision that allows individuals to challenge voting laws that result in racial or language-based discrimination. In Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021), the Court considered whether two Arizona voting policies, a ban on ballot collection and a rule invalidating ballots cast in the wrong precinct, violated Section 2.
The Ninth Circuit had struck both policies down, finding that they disproportionately burdened Native American, Latino, and Black voters and that one was enacted with discriminatory intent. But the Supreme Court reversed, upholding both laws and drastically narrowing the scope of what counts as illegal voter suppression.
Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Alito introduced a set of vague, ahistorical “guideposts” for future Section 2 challenges — none of which appear in the text of the VRA or reflect its legislative history. Under these new standards, even laws that disproportionately impact minority voters are likely to be upheld if they mirror voting practices from 1982, regardless of how outdated or unequal those practices were. Alito also claimed that laws imposing only the “usual burdens” of voting, such as long lines or traveling farther to the polls, aren’t discriminatory. These shifts raise the bar so high that nearly any modern voting restriction can survive, especially when justified by loosely defined state interests like preventing voter fraud.
But these so-called interests, as Justice Kagan pointed out in dissent, are often pretexts rooted in the very history of racial exclusion the VRA was designed to prevent. By rewriting the legal test for Section 2 and prioritizing state control over individual rights, the Court didn’t just interpret the law; it hollowed it out, giving states a roadmap to restrict access to the ballot under the guise of election integrity.
A Brief Reprieve
In 2023, the Supreme Court surprised many by ruling in favor of Black voters in Allen v. Milligan, a case challenging Alabama’s congressional map for diluting Black voting power. Lower courts had found that Alabama likely violated Section 2 of the VRA and ordered the creation of a second majority-Black district. Although the Supreme Court initially paused that order — allowing the illegal maps to be used in the 2022 midterms — it ultimately affirmed the lower court’s ruling.
But Milligan now looks less like a shift in the right direction and more like a temporary detour. In Louisiana v. Callais, even the state’s lawyers admit it raises the same legal question as Milligan. Yet during oral arguments, several justices, including Roberts and Kavanaugh (who had sided with the majority in Milligan), appeared open to reversing course and invalidating the new Louisiana maps drawn to ensure fair representation for Black voters. A ruling invalidating the maps could serve as a devastating and final blow to the VRA.
As the Court prepares to revisit the same ground it stood on less than two years ago, the question is no longer whether Section 2 will survive; it’s whether the Fifteenth Amendment still holds any power at all. The Constitution’s promise of racial equality at the ballot box is clear, yet every mechanism designed to uphold that promise has been stripped away, redefined, or ignored by this Court. The Voting Rights Act was born from our nation’s ugliest history — from the brutal struggles of those who fought, bled, and died to secure the right to vote. To dismantle it any further is to actively betray both the Constitution and our nation’s commitment to a multiracial democracy.
However the Court rules in this or other cases, a full analysis of the decision will be available in AFJ’s Supreme Court Term Review this summer.
Jamaal Lockings is a Dorot Fellow at Alliance for Justice.