Phil Neely

‼️SCOTUS DID NOT WEAKEN THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT The claim that the Supreme Court is “thwarting the Voting Rights Act” by striking down Louisiana’s map gets the facts exactly backward. The Court has never allowed racial gerrymanders—districts drawn predominantly on the basis of race. In Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Miller v. Johnson (1995), and in every major case since, the justices have held that such maps violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment unless they survive strict scrutiny. In Louisiana v. Callais (April 29, 2026), the 6-3 majority (Alito) simply applied that settled law. The Court ruled that Section 2 of the VRA did not require Louisiana to create a second majority-Black congressional district. Without an actual VRA violation to remedy, there was no compelling interest that could justify making race the predominant factor in drawing the lines. The map was therefore an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. This decision does not weaken the Voting Rights Act; it prevents it from being stretched beyond what Congress actually wrote and what the Constitution allows. The VRA still protects against vote dilution. It does not command states to engage in race-based districting whenever it might be politically convenient. By contrast, the Court has long held that partisan gerrymanders are non-justiciable political questions (Rucho v. Common Cause, 2019). States are generally free to draw maps that favor the party in power—unless voters in that state have created an independent redistricting commission to take the pen out of politicians’ hands. In short: racial gerrymanders remain illegal. The Louisiana ruling is not new law; it is the consistent application of 30+ years of precedent. #SCOTUS #VotingRightsAct #VRA #RacialGerrymandering #Redistricting #EqualProtection #CarolSwainSpeaks