WASHINGTON (AP) — A neutering by the Supreme Court of the Voting Rights Act's last remaining major provision would potentially trigger a political avalanche — an event that starts narrow but gathers momentum as it spreads across the national map.
In this case, the benefit would be to Republicans seeking to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives, perhaps for many years to come.
Such a change seemed more plausible Wednesday after the court's
conservative majority indicated a willingness to limit race-based districts under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The landmark civil rights law requires the drawing of legislative districts that allow minorities to select representatives of their choosing. That has created majority-Black and Latino districts that vote reliably Democratic in some of the nation's most conservative states.
Plaintiffs in one of those states, Louisiana, brought the case before the high court after the state was ordered by a federal judge to redraw its congressional map to include a second majority-Black district, one that was won by a Democrat last year. If the plaintiffs win their case, it could turn that district back into one likely to be represented by a Republican and possibly even eliminate its other Democratic seat, which also was mandated under the Voting Rights Act.
That could ripple across the South, where the Democratic group Fair Fight found that there are 19 VRA-mandated, Democratic-held seats that Republicans could conceivably redraw to their benefit.
“I’m really worried that, given the political climate that we’re in and the conservative nature of this court, and then rolling back affirmative action and giving more executive power to the president, that this will not end well for us,” said Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat.
Republicans have increasingly complained about Section 2, contending it forces them to either violate the Constitution by using racial factors in redistricting or get sued if they’re not solicitous enough of racial groups that lean Democratic.
“We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill told reporters Wednesday.
If the court sides with Louisiana, some Democratic members of Congress said they hoped the decision would be narrowly tailored to that case rather than an all-out assault on the last major pillar of the landmark civil rights law.
Even if the court strikes a broader blow to the Voting Rights Act, it's unlikely most of those districts could be redrawn before the 2026 midterm elections, and the number that ultimately could swing to the GOP is likely smaller.
Still, with the House decided by a razor-tight margin in recent elections — the GOP currently controls the chamber by three votes — every seat counts.
“It makes it harder for Democrats to create a majority if they are eliminating only Democratic districts,” said Jonathan Cervas, a political scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who has helped draw maps ordered by judges in multiple Voting Rights Act-related cases. But he cautioned against predicting the size of future Republican gains.
“None of us can even know this,” Cervas said, adding that there would still be limits on GOP benefits. “We're talking about real ceilings here.”
That's because, even if Section 2 went away, the Democratic-leaning voters it gave voice to would not. Republican mapmakers would have to put them somewhere — likely still in Democratic districts.
Take Tennessee, where the Republican-controlled Legislature drew a ruthlessly partisan map during the last redistricting cycle. That map yielded seven reliably Republican seats, and one Democratic one, a Voting Rights Act-compliant district in Memphis.
Even without the Voting Rights Act, Cervas said, there is no way for Republicans to make that Memphis seat red. If they scattered the city's voters among neighboring GOP-heavy districts, they might make those competitive.
He said some other GOP-controlled states, such as Missouri and South Carolina, are in similar binds with their lone, heavily Democratic seats that were drawn to comply with the voting law. Others, like Georgia, are so politically competitive that it’s likely Republicans couldn't erase a Democratic seat in one part of the state without jeopardizing one of their own.
Still other GOP-controlled states, such as Mississippi, may have an easier time eliminating their lone Democratic, Voting Rights Act-mandated seat. And in larger states such as North Carolina and Florida, Republicans would have a freer hand to redraw the maps to favor their party without having to preserve majority-minority seats held by Democrats.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus gathered after Wednesday's Supreme Court arguments and warned that a broad decision against Section 2, which allows challenges to racially discriminatory electoral practices, could lead to extreme gerrymandering by Republicans. That could leave many Black voters without real representation in Congress, they said.
“If you take away the elements that create the opportunity for it to look like its people, it won’t be a democracy as we hoped it would be,” said Rep. Troy Carter, a Louisiana Democrat who represents much of New Orleans. “It will be a much weaker one, and ultimately on the road to an oligarchy and not a democracy.”
Republicans already are engaged in a fevered, national mid-decade redistricting campaign because President Donald Trump wants them to maximize their number of winnable seats to stave off losing control of the House of Representatives in 2026. The incumbent president's party usually loses seats in the midterms.
It's unlikely that many Republican states could take advantage of loosened Voting Rights Act standards in time to help Trump's quest. It’s not clear when the court will issue its decision, but it will almost certainly be issued by early summer of 2026. That could come after the filing deadlines for congressional races in almost all states.
While some Republican-controlled states could try extraordinary measures to take advantage of a favorable ruling, it's more likely that most changes would be incorporated into maps for 2028 and beyond.
Still, Democrats are on edge.
“If they were to strip Section 2, I think that’s going to give license for us to see a more aggressive redistricting, and that’s what’s been blocking them throughout the entire nation,” said Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Florida Democrat who represents a majority minority district in South Florida.
“The Voting Rights Act is the most important piece of civil rights legislation ever enacted and continues to remain relevant in an environment where there are people across this country who want to undermine our free and fair elections, particularly as it relates to communities of color,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the first person of color to lead a major party in Congress, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The main effect of any changes actually would be felt well beyond the halls of Congress, said Kareem Crayton of the Brennan Center for Justice. He said three-quarters of all Section 2 cases concern state or local government offices.
“It’s the things below Congress that are closer to the people, city councils, county commissions, school boards, all of those have been the direct recipients of the work of plaintiffs who have sued to get representation that allows people to actually engage in what we call traditional politics,” he said.
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Riccardi reported from Denver.
