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.”
By
janea4old ·
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.