The court struck down the voting map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in a move that could make it harder for lawmakers to create majority-minority voting districts.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Louisiana’s voting map, finding that lawmakers had illegally used race when drawing up a new majority-Black district and potentially setting off a scramble in the middle of primary season as states consider drawing new maps.
The decision was 6 to 3, split along ideological lines. The conservative majority asserted that the opinion was a limited ruling that preserved a central tenet of the Voting Rights Act, but the court’s liberal wing, in dissent, argued that the justices had taken the final step to dismantle the landmark civil rights law.
In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the court had kept intact the Voting Rights Act but that Louisiana’s new majority-minority district violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.
For decades under the Voting Rights Act, lawmakers have created districts where nonwhite voters are in the majority, to protect their ability to elect the candidates of their choice.
But Justice Alito said that “vast social change,” particularly in the South, including increased voter registration and turnout by minorities, showed such considerations were no longer necessary.
Instead, he wrote that the justices were updating the 40-year-old framework that courts look to for evaluating the use of race in drawing up congressional districts, essentially saying that the Voting Rights Act only prevents lawmakers from drawing maps that would intentionally limit the power of minority voters.