Supreme Court Gutted Voting Rights Act, Leaving Few Options

The U.S. Supreme Court has dramatically narrowed the tools available to protect minority voting rights under the Voting Rights Act (VRA), issuing a landmark 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais that legal experts say renders Section 2 of the VRA all but unenforceable. The ruling, combined with a subsequent order allowing Alabama to use a congressional map a lower court found to be intentionally discriminatory against Black voters, has left minority communities with limited alternatives: state-level voting rights acts in Democratic-controlled states and partisan gerrymandering strategies that cannot fully replace federal protections.

Background: The Voting Rights Act Under Siege

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, enacted at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, has long been the nation’s most powerful tool against racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 of the VRA prohibits any voting practice that discriminates on the basis of race, and for decades it served as the primary legal mechanism for minority groups to challenge discriminatory redistricting maps. The Supreme Court had already weakened the law significantly in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which struck down the preclearance formula that required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing voting laws.

In Allen v. Milligan (2023), the Court appeared to reaffirm Section 2, ordering Alabama to create a second majority-Black congressional district. But that victory proved short-lived. When Louisiana drew a similar map with two majority-Black districts to comply with the VRA, a three-judge panel ruled it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander — and the Supreme Court agreed.

The Louisiana v. Callais Decision

On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais along ideological lines, 6-3. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Justice Kagan wrote the dissent, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.

According to NPR, the Court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map — which created two majority-Black districts to comply with Section 2 — was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. While the Court did not formally strike down Section 2, it added new, stringent requirements for vote dilution claims that legal experts say make them practically impossible to enforce.

The majority held that plaintiffs in Section 2 challenges must now prove that a state intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race. This revives an intent-based standard that Congress explicitly rejected in the 1982 amendments to the VRA, as documented in the Wikipedia article on the case.

Justice Kagan wrote in her dissent: “The consequences of the Court’s decision are likely to be far-reaching and grave. Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.”

The Alabama Order: A Second Blow

Just over a month after Callais, the Supreme Court delivered another blow. On June 2, 2026, the Court allowed Alabama to use a congressional map that a three-judge district court panel unanimously found was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.” The ruling means Alabama’s 2026 midterm elections will feature six Republican-leaning districts and one Democratic-leaning one, likely costing Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures his seat.

Deuel Ross, director of litigation at the Legal Defense Fund, condemned the decision in a statement quoted by the ACLU: “The Supreme Court’s decision gives cover to Alabama and others to deliberately and openly discriminate against Black voters without fear of any consequence.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall celebrated the ruling, saying: “For too long, Alabama has been denied the full measure of its sovereignty by judges who insist on treating our state as though it never moved beyond the 1960s. No more.”

Analysis: Limited Alternatives Remain

The rulings are expected to lead to the largest-ever drop in Black representation in Congress. The New York Times estimated that up to twelve House seats could shift from Democratic to Republican control.

What options remain for protecting minority voting rights? Around a dozen states have passed state-level voting rights acts, but none with a unified Republican or divided government has done so. Democratic lawmakers have recently advanced bills in Michigan, New Jersey, and Delaware. However, these state laws generally cover only state and local elections — not federal congressional races.

Wilfred Codrington III, a professor at Cardozo Law School, warned that even these state-level protections may be vulnerable. “I’m nervous that the Supreme Court may sort of have those in its crosshairs as well,” he told NPR. Just over a week after Callais, the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011, arguing it is unconstitutional.

Another potential avenue is partisan gerrymandering by Democratic-controlled states. Nick Stephanopoulos, an election law professor at Harvard Law School, suggested that Democratic map drawers could spread minority voters who tend to support Democrats into other districts to gain additional House seats — without sacrificing minority representation. He pointed to California’s new congressional map, which Democrats drew to flip five Republican-held seats without eliminating any minority-opportunity districts.

But as Stephanopoulos acknowledged: “Only federal action would respond to the vacuum that’s left in the South.”

What’s Next

Any federal legislative fix would likely require Democrats to regain control of both Congress and the White House, which is expected to take years. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries pledged: “We will not rest until the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act becomes the law of the land.”

However, the Court’s conservative supermajority may prove to be the ultimate hurdle for a strengthened federal law. As Stephanopoulos noted, indirect approaches like tackling partisan gerrymandering might be more sensible in the short term.

In the meantime, Codrington emphasized that state and local efforts remain worthwhile: “States are in this unique position to do some things. But we need a federal government to be involved and invested in this problem if we’re going to have any sort of wide promotion of democracy across the United States.”