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The United States Supreme Court issued an opinion on Wednesday that critics say may have finally dismantled protections for nonwhite voters codified in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

By a 6-3 ruling along partisan lines, the conservative-led court found that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was being improperly used by lower courts to require states that have racially gerrymandered their congressional districts to redraw them, to ensure Black-majority districts would be a part of the eventual delegation for those states.

All three liberal-bloc justices in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, disagreed with the ruling.

Justice Samuel Alito authored the opinion of the court, writing that the Voting Rights Act “was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it.” He further alleged that lower courts requiring Black-majority districts had “engage[d] in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

Justice Elena Kagan penned the dissent, vehemently disagreeing with Alito’s interpretation of the law, noting that, under this new standard, “a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”

Supreme Court Is Poised to Gut Remaining Protections of the Voting Rights Act

Describing Alito’s ruling as an “antiseptic” view of how Section 2 of the law should be applied, Kagan wrote in her dissent that the “updates” that the conservative majority proffered will “eviscerate the law, so that it will not remedy” clear examples of voter dilution based on race.

“Without a basis in Section 2’s text or the Constitution, the majority formulates new proof requirements for plaintiffs alleging vote dilution,” Kagan added.

Kagan also noted that the ruling “is part of a set” of other actions by the conservative-led Supreme Court to stifle enforcement of the law. “For over a decade, this Court has had its sights set on the Voting Rights Act,” Kagan wrote.

Despite the court just three terms prior upholding Section 2 to allow lower courts to demand redrawing racial gerrymanders, the majority ruling “does ‘revise and reformulate’ . . . and destroy” the Voting Rights Act, she said, adding:

[The majority opinion] avails itself again of the tools used before to dismantle the Act: untenable........

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