Supreme Court Poised to Dismantle Key Voting Rights Protections, Echoing History of Racial Gerrymandering
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The Supreme Court appears set to further erode the Voting Rights Act, potentially abolishing Section 2 and opening the door to widespread voter suppression, a move with deep historical resonance.
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, centers on a challenge to the federal mandate to draw a second majority-Black district in Louisiana. A ruling against Louisiana and its Black voters could effectively dismantle Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act – a critical provision prohibiting discriminatory voting practices that diminish the political power of minority groups. This decision follows the Court’s 2013 ruling that gutted key provisions regarding federal oversight of elections.
The potential consequences are stark: the dismantling of Section 2 would empower Southern state legislatures to redraw political districts, likely weakening the voting power of racial minorities and ushering in an era of widespread “vote dilution.”
The case originated with Louisiana citizens who argued that the requirement to create a second majority-Black district violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, constituting an unconstitutional act of racial gerrymandering. This argument presents a striking historical irony, as the 14th Amendment was initially designed to protect the rights of newly freed people following the Civil War.
“The 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause has been the foundation of the nation’s modern rights-based legal order,” ensuring fair treatment for all citizens and preventing explicit government discrimination. However, the current legal challenge seeks to leverage this very amendment to justify a rollback of decades of progress in Black political representation.
The Second Founding and the Rise of Black Political Power
The Reconstruction-era amendments, including the 14th Amendment, represent what some historians call the nation’s “second founding.” These amendments created the first cohort of Black elected officials, marking a pivotal moment in American history. However, as historian and author of “Requiem for Reconstruction” notes, the struggle to secure these rights was fraught with challenges and ultimately vulnerable to reversal.
Understanding this history – and the forces that undermined Reconstruction’s promise of racial justice – is crucial to comprehending the contemporary forces reshaping the political landscape. The current legal battle, she argues, “subverts the true intentions of the Constitution.”
A Long History of Manipulating the Ballot
While political gerrymandering – shaping district boundaries to favor a particular party – has been a feature of American politics since the nation’s founding, racial gerrymandering emerged as a distinct and insidious practice in the wake of the Civil War.
Following the Civil War and the passage of the 15th Amendment granting Black men the right to vote, Southern state legislatures began employing increasingly sophisticated tactics to suppress the Black vote. Beyond simply redrawing district lines after each decennial census, these legislatures created what became known as “Black districts.”
The first wave of racial gerrymandering arose in response to the political gains made by Southern Black voters during the 1870s. States like Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Louisiana all elected Black congressmen during that decade. In South Carolina, Black men were elected to the House from three of the state’s four districts during the 42nd Congress (1871-1873).
From Violence to Legal Maneuvering
Initially, white Democrats responded to the rise of Black political power with racist narratives, falsely portraying Black voters and officeholders as a corruption of the political order. These attacks often served as a pretext for widespread political violence, including the terrorization of Black voters and the assassination of political leaders.
Following these episodes of violence, Southern legislatures sought legal remedies to permanently undo Reconstruction’s advancements. A generation before the Jim Crow era, they began to systematically disenfranchise Black voters through racial gerrymandering.
These newly created districts were often intentionally designed to be geographically absurd. In Mississippi, a district was drawn in a “shoestring” shape, snaking alongside the state’s river. North Carolina created the “Black Second” to concentrate African American voters into a single district. Alabama’s “Black Fourth” similarly limited the influence of Black voters to a single district within the state’s Black Belt.
South Carolina’s “Black Seventh” district, created in 1882, became notorious for its extreme contortions, “slicing through county lines and ducking around Charleston back alleys” – a precursor to the sophisticated, computer-aided redistricting techniques used today. This district, possessing 30,000 more voters than any other in the state, effectively isolated Black political influence to a single, gerrymandered area.
“It was the high-water mark of political ingenuity coupled with rascality, and the merits of its appellation,” observed one Black congressman who represented South Carolina’s 7th District at the time.
The Second Reconstruction and the Voting Rights Act
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, often referred to as the “Second Reconstruction,” culminated in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This landmark legislation revived the 15th Amendment, which had been rendered ineffective by Jim Crow laws and a compliant Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s rulings in Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), affirming the principle of “one person, one vote,” further dismantled the political structures of the Solid South, which had long been characterized by sparsely populated, Democratic-controlled districts.
The Voting Rights Act granted the federal government oversight over changes to voting policies that could potentially affect marginalized groups. Since its passage, racial gerrymandering has largely been used to create districts that preserve and amplify the political representation of these groups.
However, this progress is now threatened by the current Supreme Court. The Court, having heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais in October 2025, is expected to issue its decision by the end of June 2026, a ruling that could fundamentally reshape the landscape of voting rights in America.
