Supreme Court’s conservatives face choices to limit Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has several avenues at its disposal as it appears poised to limit a central provision of the Voting Rights Act.
As the justices consider Louisiana’s congressional map, a rare reargument at the high court, expectations are growing that the Supreme Court’s decades-old framework that force states to draw additional majority-minority districts under the key provision will be reined in one way or another.
At the center of the arguments is Section 2 of the law, which prohibits voting practices that result in racial minorities having less opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice.
Republican-led states have increasingly criticized the Supreme Court’s framework for spurring endless litigation and pushing states to unconstitutionally consider race to comply.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, during oral arguments earlier this month, repeatedly suggested ruling that race-based redistricting remedies have reached their logical end point. Kavanaugh raised it to three different arguing lawyers.
It’s a similar rationale to the court’s 2013 decision that struck down another Voting Rights Act provision, which created a formula to require jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to get preclearance from the Justice Department before enacting new voting rules.
It would also be in the vein of the court’s decision invalidating affirmative action in college admissions. When the court had endorsed affirmative action in 2003, it expressed an expectation that it wouldn’t be necessary in 25 years.
“This Court's cases in a variety of contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades in some cases,” Kavanaugh said at last week’s argument. “But that they should not be indefinite and should have a end........





















Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Tarik Cyril Amar
Stefano Lusa
Mort Laitner
Robert Sarner
Mark Travers Ph.d
Ellen Ginsberg Simon
Andrew Silow-Carroll