Supreme Court redistricting ruling could upend decades of voting rights law

On Oct the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in one of the the majority anticipated cases of the - term Louisiana v Callais with major implications for the Voting Rights Act racial representation and Democratic Party power in Congress The central question in the circumstance is to what extent race can or must be used when congressional districts are redrawn Plaintiffs are challenging whether the longstanding interpretation of Section of the Voting Rights Act which requires protection of minority voting power in redistricting violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U S Constitution which guarantees that individuals should be treated the same by the law In short the plaintiffs argue that the state of Louisiana s use of race to make a second Black-majority district is forbidden by the U S Constitution This is the second time that the court will hear oral arguments in Louisiana v Callais after no decision was reached last term From my perspective as a scholar of U S federal courts and electoral systems this matter represents the collision of decades of Supreme Court decisions on race redistricting and the Voting Rights Act Long legal battle To understand the stakes of the current episode it s critical to know what the Voting Rights Act does Initially passed in the act helped end decades of racially discriminatory voting laws by providing federal enforcement of voting rights Section of the Voting Rights Act forbids discrimination by states in relation to voting rights and has been used for decades to challenge redistricting plans The current episode has its roots in the redistricting of Louisiana s congressional districts following the Census States are required to redraw districts each decade based on new population facts Louisiana lawmakers redrew the state s six congressional districts without major changes in Soon after the state redistricted a group of Black voters challenged the map in federal court as a violation of the Voting Rights Act The plaintiffs argued that the new map was discriminatory because the voting power of Black citizens in the state was being illegally diluted The state s population was Black but only one of the six districts featured a majority-Black population The federal courts in sided with the plaintiffs claim that the plan did violate the Voting Rights Act and ordered the state legislature to redraw the congressional plan with a second Black-majority district The judges relied on an interpretation of Section of the Voting Rights Act from a Supreme Court decision in the scenario known as Thornburg v Gingles Under this interpretation Section s nondiscrimination requirement means that congressional districts must be drawn in a way that allows large politically cohesive and compact racial minorities to be able to elect representatives of their choice In the Supreme Court upheld a lower court s interpretation of Section of the Voting Rights Act in a similar racial gerrymandering circumstance in Alabama Louisiana lawmakers redraw districts Following the court order the Louisiana state legislature passed Senate Bill in January redrawing the congressional map and creating two districts where Black voters composed a substantial portion of the electorate in compliance with the Gingles ruling This map was used in the congressional voting and both Black-majority districts elected Democrats while the other four districts elected Republicans These new congressional districts from Senate Bill were challenged by a group of white voters in in a set of cases that became Louisiana v Callais The plaintiffs argued that the Louisiana legislature s drawing of districts based on race in Senate Bill was in violation of the th Amendment s Equal Protection Clause which requires equal restoration of individuals by the establishment and the th Amendment which forbids denying the right to vote based on race Essentially the plaintiffs claimed that the courts interpretation of Section of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional and that the use of race to create a majority-minority district is itself discriminatory Similar arguments about the th Amendment s Equal Protection Clause were also the basis of the Supreme Court s latest decisions striking down race-based affirmative action in college admissions In a three-judge district court sided with the white plaintiffs in Louisiana v Callais with a - decision The Black plaintiffs from the original circumstance and the state of Louisiana appealed the scenario to the Supreme Court The court originally heard the scenario at the end of the - term before ordering the episode re-argued for - Related Thanks to Trump and the Supreme Court we re facing a legal urgency High stakes and notable precedent If the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the lower court decision in Louisiana v Callais deciding that Louisiana s congressional districts are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders it will have substantial impacts on minority representation The decision would upend decades of precedent for Section of the Voting Rights Act For years Section of the Voting Rights Act has required redistricting institutions to consider racial and ethnic minority representation when devising congressional districts Majority-minority districting is required when a state has large compact and cohesive minority communities Historically certain states have redistricted minority communities in techniques that dilute their voting power such as cracking a area into multiple districts where they compose a small percentage of the electorate Section also provides voters and residents with a legal tool that has been used to challenge districts as discriminatory A large number of voters and groups have used Section successfully to challenge redistricting plans Section has been the main legal tool for challenging racial discrimination in redistricting for the past decade In the Supreme Court effectively ended the other major component of the Voting Rights Act the preclearance provision which required certain states to have changes to their elections laws approved by the federal authorities including redistricting If the court overrules the current interpretation of Section it would limit the legality of using race in redistricting end requirements for majority-minority districts and eliminate the preponderance common way to challenge discriminatory districting Additionally because of the strong relationship between several minority communities and the Democratic party the court s decision has major implications for partisan control of the House of Representatives If Section no longer required majority-minority districts then Republicans could use the ruling to redraw congressional districts across the country to benefit their party Politico released that Democrats could lose as multiple as House seats if the Supreme Court sides with the lower court Latest Supreme Court precedent gives conflicting signals as to how it will decide this matter In the court rejected a challenge to Section of the Voting Rights Act related to Alabama s congressional districts In the court overruled a lower court s finding of racial vote dilution in South Carolina Sam D Hayes Assistant professor of politics and program Simmons University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license Read the original article Read more about this topic Supreme Court ruling could let GOP add House seats and clear the path for a one-party system Why the ACLU is backing a GOP lawmaker at the Supreme Court How SCOTUS erased the abuse of LGBTQ kids The post Supreme Court redistricting ruling could upend decades of voting rights law appeared first on Salon com