The One-Sentence Version
On April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that challenges to racially discriminatory voting maps now require proof of intentional discrimination, effectively eliminating the legal standard Congress wrote into the Voting Rights Act in 1982 to protect minority voters from having their political power diluted.
By the Numbers
| What | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Year the Voting Rights Act was signed | 1965 | [1] |
| Black voter registration in Mississippi before the VRA | 6.7% | [1] |
| Black voter registration in Mississippi after the VRA (1968) | 59.4% | [1] |
| Senate vote to reauthorize the VRA in 2006 | 98-0 | [3] |
| Supreme Court vote in Louisiana v. Callais (2026) | 6-3 | [4] |
| House seats that could be affected by the ruling | Up to 19 | [6] |
| Hours before Florida passed a new redistricting map after the ruling | 1 | [5] |
| Seats Florida’s new map shifts toward Republicans | 4 | [5] |
| Years Chief Justice Roberts has worked to weaken the VRA | 40+ | [4] |
| Percentage of DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys who have left since January 2025 | ~70% | [14] |
What Is the Voting Rights Act?
The problem it was written to solve
Before 1965, Black Americans in the South were systematically prevented from voting. The methods were varied and creative in their cruelty:[1][2]
- Literacy tests applied selectively: white applicants were waved through while Black applicants were failed even when they could clearly read. Registrars had sole discretion over whether answers were “correct.”
- Poll taxes equivalent to $25-50 in today’s money, excluding Black and poor white voters.
- “Grandfather clauses” that exempted anyone whose grandfather could vote before 1865 (before abolition), which meant nearly all white voters were exempt and nearly all Black voters were not.
- Violence and intimidation: Black citizens who tried to register faced harassment, economic reprisals, beatings, and murder.
The numbers were stark. In Selma, Alabama, only 335 of 15,000 eligible Black citizens were registered. Over two years, only 93 of 795 Black applicants were allowed to register, while 745 of 1,232 white applicants were accepted. In Mississippi, only 6.7% of eligible Black citizens were registered in 1964.[1]
Bloody Sunday
On March 7, 1965, 600 civil rights marchers attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. State troopers attacked the peaceful protesters with tear gas, nightsticks, and whips. The footage aired on national television that evening, interrupting regular programming. The brutality shocked the country.[1]
Eight days later, President Lyndon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress. He adopted the language of the movement itself: “It is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.” He sent the bill to Congress within 48 hours.[1]
What the VRA did
The Voting Rights Act, signed August 6, 1965, had two main enforcement mechanisms:[1][2]
Section 5 (preclearance): States with a history of discrimination had to get federal approval before changing any voting law. This was the preventive tool. It stopped discriminatory laws before they could take effect.
Section 2 (nationwide prohibition): A permanent, nationwide ban on voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race. This was the enforcement tool. When a state passed a discriminatory law or drew a discriminatory map, voters could challenge it in court under Section 2.
It worked
The results were immediate and dramatic:[1]
- By the end of 1965, 250,000 new Black voters had registered.
- Mississippi’s Black voter registration rose from 6.7% to 59.4% within three years.
- Alabama’s rose from 23% to 56.7%.
- Across the former Confederate states, nearly 1 million new Black voters registered between 1964 and 1968.
Congress reauthorized the VRA four times, most recently in 2006 when the Senate voted 98-0 and the House voted 390-33.[3] President George W. Bush signed it.
How the Supreme Court Dismantled It
The VRA had two pillars. The Court has now knocked down both.
2013: Section 5 destroyed
In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Court struck down Section 4, the formula that determined which states needed preclearance. Without the formula, Section 5 couldn’t function. The vote was 5-4. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, arguing that the formula was based on outdated data and that “things have changed dramatically” in the South.[4][2]
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented: throwing out preclearance was like “throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”[2]
Texas implemented a restrictive voter ID law the same day the ruling came down.[2]
At the time, the Court assured the public that Section 2 remained intact to protect minority voters.[5]
2021: Section 2 weakened for voting restrictions
In Brnovich v. DNC (2021), Justice Alito wrote a 6-3 opinion making Section 2 much harder to use against laws that restrict ballot access, such as voter ID requirements, polling place closures, and bans on ballot collection. Since Brnovich, no Section 2 challenge to a voting restriction has succeeded at trial under the new framework.[5]
2023: A brief reprieve
In Allen v. Milligan (2023), the Court ruled 5-4 that Alabama’s congressional map violated Section 2. Chief Justice Roberts joined the liberal justices and Justice Kavanaugh. Alabama was ordered to create a second majority-Black district.[4][5]
Alito dissented. His dissent became the foundation of today’s ruling.[5]
2026: Section 2 gutted for redistricting
On April 29, 2026, in Louisiana v. Callais, the Court completed the project.[4][5]
What the Court Ruled
The case
After the 2020 census, a federal court found that Louisiana’s congressional map likely violated Section 2 by diluting Black voting power. Louisiana is approximately 33% Black but had only 1 majority-Black district out of 6. The court ordered a second majority-Black district created.[4]
A group of white residents challenged the redrawn map, arguing that using race to draw the new district violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.[4]
The ruling
The Court ruled 6-3 that the redrawn map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and that Section 2 did not require it. Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.[4][5]
What changed
Before Callais: Under the 1986 Thornburg v. Gingles framework, voters challenging a redistricting map had to show three things: (1) the minority group was large and compact enough for a majority-minority district, (2) the minority group voted cohesively, and (3) the white majority voted as a bloc to defeat the minority’s preferred candidates. No proof of intentional discrimination was required. Congress wrote this standard explicitly in 1982 to override the Court’s earlier intent requirement.[2][5]
After Callais: Voters must now prove the state intentionally drew districts to reduce minority voting power because of their race.[4][5] And because race and party affiliation are closely correlated, especially in the South, a state can now defend any map by claiming partisan rather than racial motivation.[5]
Since the Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) that partisan gerrymandering is not reviewable by federal courts, this creates a legal shield: racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional but can be disguised as partisan gerrymandering, which courts have said they cannot review.[5]
UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, one of the country’s leading election law scholars, wrote: “It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics.”[5]
What the Justices Said
The majority (Alito)
Alito argued that conditions have changed since 1965 and that the Gingles test needed “updating.” He wrote that “vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South” and that if it is now hard to find evidence of intentional voting discrimination, “that is cause for celebration.”[4]
He cited Roberts’ 2013 Shelby County opinion repeatedly, adapting the line: “As this Court has recognized, ‘things have changed dramatically’ in the decades since the passage of the Voting Rights Act.”[4]
Justice Thomas, joined by Gorsuch, wrote separately to argue the Court should go further and hold that Section 2 does not apply to redistricting at all.[5]
The dissent (Kagan)
Justice Kagan read her dissent from the bench, a signal of strong disagreement. She dropped the traditional “respectfully” from her conclusion, writing only: “I dissent.”[4]
Key quotes:
- “This court’s project to destroy the Voting Rights Act is now complete.”[4]
- “For over a decade, this court has had its sights set on the Voting Rights Act.”[4]
- The Act “was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers.”[4]
- “Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter.”[5]
- “Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”[5]
- On the requirement to “control for partisan affiliation”: “In many places, racial polarization in voting is expressed through party preference. To remove that factor is to strip the evidence of its meaning.”[5]
Kagan argued the decision returns Section 2 to what it was before Congress’s 1982 amendment, which Congress passed specifically to override the Court’s earlier intent-only standard. In other words, the Court reimposed the exact standard that Congress rejected 44 years ago.[5]
The Roberts Project
This ruling did not come from nowhere. CNN’s chief Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic traced Chief Justice Roberts’ opposition to the Voting Rights Act back to the early 1980s.[4]
As a young lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department in 1981-82, Roberts was, according to a DOJ colleague, the point person arguing against the 1982 effects-test amendment to Section 2. He argued in internal memos that the effects test would “throw into litigation existing electoral systems at every level of government nationwide when there is no evidence of voting abuses nationwide supporting the need for such a change.”[4][5]
Congress overruled him. The 1982 amendment passed with broad bipartisan support.
After becoming Chief Justice in 2005, Roberts wrote: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”[4] He wrote the opinion dismantling Section 5 in 2013. He assigned the Callais opinion to Alito, who has voted against expansive minority voting rights in every VRA case he has heard.[4][5]
Slate’s Rick Hasen described the trajectory: the Court killed Section 5 in 2013, weakened Section 2 for voting restrictions in 2021, and gutted Section 2 for redistricting in 2026. “It’s the culmination of the life’s work of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito.”[5]
What Happens Now
States are already moving
Within one hour of the ruling, the Florida House voted 83-28 to approve a new congressional map drawn by Governor DeSantis. The Senate followed 21-17. The map would shift four seats toward Republicans, potentially changing Florida’s delegation from 20-8 to 24-4, Republican to Democratic.[5][8]
Mississippi’s governor called a special legislative session for May 20 to redraw state Supreme Court districts.[8]
Louisiana suspended its May 16 primary to redraw maps. Rep. Cleo Fields, who won the second majority-Black district in 2024, will almost certainly lose his seat.[4]
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn called for her state legislature to reconvene to create another Republican seat in Memphis, calling it essential to “cement @realDonaldTrump’s agenda.”[8]
How many seats are at risk?
Estimates vary. Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter project that up to 19 majority-minority House seats could be affected. NPR’s analysis found white candidates could win 15 seats currently held by Black members of Congress. The full impact will be clearest in the 2028 redistricting cycle, when every state draws new maps.[6][8]
Can Congress fix it?
Yes. Congress amended Section 2 in 1982 specifically to override the Court’s intent requirement, and it could do so again. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would create a new preclearance formula to replace what Shelby County struck down. Congress could also write new statutory protections for redistricting.[2][5]
In 2006, the Senate voted 98-0 to reauthorize the VRA.[3] Whether that kind of bipartisan consensus exists today is a separate question.
The enforcement gap
The ruling compounds an existing problem. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which enforces voting rights laws, has lost approximately 70% of its attorneys since January 2025.[14] The Voting Section is operating with minimal staff. Even before Callais, the federal government’s capacity to enforce the remaining voting rights protections was severely diminished.
The 2026 midterm elections are six months away.
The Counter-Arguments
”The VRA was necessary in 1965 but conditions have changed”
Conditions have improved dramatically since 1965. Black voter registration in the South is now comparable to white voter registration. This progress is real and significant. The question is what caused it. The Voting Rights Act is widely credited by historians and political scientists as the primary driver of that change.[1][2] Removing the law that produced the improvement and citing the improvement as evidence the law is no longer needed is the logic Justice Ginsburg warned about in 2013.[2]
In the years since Shelby County removed preclearance, states previously covered by Section 5 have closed polling places, implemented strict voter ID laws, and purged voter rolls at rates that civil rights organizations and federal courts have found to be discriminatory.[2]
“Race-conscious redistricting is itself a form of racial discrimination”
This is the core of the majority’s argument: that drawing districts with race as a factor violates the Equal Protection Clause. The counter-argument, made by Kagan in dissent, is that the Voting Rights Act exists precisely because race-neutral rules produced racially discriminatory outcomes. Ignoring race in redistricting does not produce race-neutral results. It produces the results that existed before the VRA, when Black voters in states with large Black populations could not elect representatives of their choosing.[4][5]
“This is just about partisan gerrymandering, not racial gerrymandering”
In states where race and party affiliation are closely correlated, drawing maps that disadvantage Democrats will also disadvantage Black voters. The Callais ruling allows states to claim partisan motivation for maps that have racial effects. Since the Court has separately ruled that partisan gerrymandering is not reviewable by courts (Rucho, 2019), the practical result is that maps with racially discriminatory effects can be insulated from any judicial review.[5]
“The Court is just interpreting the law, not changing policy”
Congress amended Section 2 in 1982 specifically to establish an effects test and eliminate the intent requirement. The legislative history is explicit. The Callais majority reimposed the intent requirement that Congress rejected. Congress voted, by large bipartisan margins, to make Section 2 work without requiring proof of intent. The Court overrode that congressional judgment.[2][5]
Where Things Stand
Section 5 has been inoperable since 2013. Section 2 is now, in Kagan’s words, “all but a dead letter” for redistricting challenges, and has not produced a successful voting restriction challenge since 2021.[5]
The Voting Rights Act was passed after marchers were beaten on a bridge. It was reauthorized four times with overwhelming bipartisan support, most recently 98-0 in the Senate. It transformed American democracy by bringing millions of citizens into the electorate for the first time. Over 60 years, the Supreme Court has taken it apart piece by piece: the preclearance formula in 2013, the voting restriction protections in 2021, and the redistricting protections in 2026.[1][2][4][5]
Florida redrew its maps within an hour of the ruling.[8] Mississippi called a special session.[8] Tennessee is targeting its only majority-Black district.[8]
Congress has the power to restore the protections. It has done it before: in 1982, it overrode the Court’s intent requirement with a bipartisan vote. Whether it will do so again is a question for the voters who go to the polls in November.
Sources
1. National Archives: The Voting Rights Act (Milestone Document)
2. Brennan Center for Justice: The Voting Rights Act Explained
3. U.S. Senate: Senate Passes Voting Rights Act (Historical Record)
4. CNN: John Roberts’ Effort to Gut the Voting Rights Act Is Complete (April 30, 2026)
5. Slate: The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Just Issued the Worst Ruling in a Century (April 29, 2026)
6. Salon: Supreme Court Guts the Voting Rights Act in “Jim Crow 2.0” Ruling (April 30, 2026)
7. New York Times: Supreme Court Voting Rights Act Decision (April 30, 2026)
8. NPR: Florida Lawmakers Pass Voting Map That Could Help Republicans Flip 4 House Seats (April 2026)
9. Supreme Court Opinion: Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___ (2026)
10. SCOTUSblog: Louisiana v. Callais Case Page
11. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013)
12. Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U.S. 647 (2021)
13. Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1 (2023)
14. NPR: 70% of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Lawyers Are Leaving (May 2025)