15 hours ago, janea4old said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-supreme-court-blocks-louisiana-voting-map-with-second-black-majority-district-2026-04-29/

WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act - making it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law - in a victory for Louisiana Republicans and President Donald Trump's administration.

The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative members, blocked an electoral map that had given Louisiana a second Black-majority U.S. congressional district. With November congressional elections looming, the decision could prompt Republican-led states to seek to redraw electoral maps in an effort to put at ‌risk seats considered safely Democratic.

Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissent joined by the two other liberal justices, said the ruling rendered the Voting Rights Act "all but a dead letter," and predicted "grave" consequences.

"Under the court's new view of Section 2, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens' voting power," Kagan wrote. "Of course, the majority does not announce today's holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic. The majority claims only to be 'updating' our Section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks."

"But in fact, those 'updates' eviscerate the law, so that it will not remedy even the classic example of vote dilution given above," Kagan added.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by janea4old

The Supreme Court decision was 6-3.

The three dissenters were Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/in-major-voting-rights-act-case-supreme-court-strikes-down-redistricting-map-challenged-as-racia/

In a somber tone, Kagan read a summary of her 48-page dissent from the bench – a signal of her strong disagreement with the majority’s ruling. “The Voting Rights Act,” she wrote “is—or, now more accurately, was—‘one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.’ It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.” And only Congress, Kagan argued, can “say it is no longer needed—not the Members of this Court.”

But the requirements that the court imposes on Wednesday, Kagan contended, “will effectively insulate any practice, including any districting scheme, said by a State to have any race-neutral justification. That justification can sound in traditional districting criteria, or else can sound in politics and partisanship. As to the latter, the State need do nothing more than announce a partisan gerrymander,” she said. “Assuming the State has left behind no smoking-gun evidence of a race-based motive (an almost fanciful prospect), Section 2 will play no role.”

Kagan rejected Alito’s contention that the majority had merely made “updates” to the Gingles framework, arguing instead that the majority’s changes “eviscerate the law, so that it will not remedy even” classic cases of vote dilution. “Without a basis in Section 2’s text or the Constitution,” Kagan argued, “the majority formulates new proof requirements for plaintiffs alleging vote dilution.” The new requirements that the majority imposes, Kagan said, “leverage two features of modern political life: that racial identity and party preference are often linked and that politicians have free rein to adopt partisan gerrymanders.”

Kagan also emphasized that when Congress amended Section 2 of the VRA in 1982, it did so specifically to override the Supreme Court’s decision holding that Section 2 prohibited only intentional discrimination. “It made sure instead,” Kagan wrote, as this court recently explained, “that Section 2 would ‘turn[] on the presence of discriminatory effects.’” “Today’s decision,” Kagan argued, “returns Section 2 to what it was” before the 1982 amendment. “Now, as then, vote-dilution plaintiffs will have to show more than vote dilution: They will have to show, as well, race-based motive. Now, as then, that requirement will make success in their suits nearly impossible.”

In another sign of her disagreement with the majority’s decision, Kagan omitted the traditional “respectfully” from her conclusion, writing only, “I dissent.”