By Alethia Kasben and Reid Wilson
Gongwer News Service
Michigan Democrats slammed a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Wednesday that struck down Louisiana’s congressional district map lines, ruling the creation of a second Black-majority district in a state where about a third of residents are Black represented an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The ruling could have significant implications when the state’s redistricting commission redraws U.S. House lines ahead of the 2032 election cycle. Detroit, one of the nation’s largest majority Black cities, traditionally has been split in half for the U.S. House to create an opportunity to elect two members who are Black.
However, for the first time since the 1950s, Detroit has no Black representation in Congress.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson called the ruling “a slap in the face of democracy.”
In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by the court’s five conservative justices, the Supreme Court held the Voting Rights Act did not obligate Louisiana to draw a second majority-minority district. Alito’s decision said the Legislature’s use of racial data in drawing a second Black-majority district was unconstitutional.
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, has been closely watched by voting rights activists who had feared the court would gut the Voting Rights Act. Several non-Black voters challenged Louisiana’s new map after the Legislature redrew it in 2024, arguing they had been denied their rights by the creation of a new district.
The court agreed.
“The Constitution almost never permits a State to discriminate on the basis of race, and such discrimination triggers strict scrutiny,” Alito wrote.
In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court’s liberal wing, said the decision “will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.”
Benson, who is running for governor, said the decision shows the importance of state leaders “who take seriously our moral responsibility to protect every citizen’s right to vote in free and fair elections.”
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is one of the most important tools we have to ensure the ‘one person, one vote’ protections in our Constitution are made real for every American,” Benson said. “The Court’s decision to weaken it is an insult to the millions who fought and bled during the civil rights movement and will have disastrous consequences for communities of color across the country.”
Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, the endorsed Democratic nominee for secretary of state, in a statement said the decision, “guts one of the most important civil rights protections in our nation’s history and opens the door to more MAGA manipulation of our elections and our democracy.”
“This ruling is part of a broader MAGA plan to rig the system so it works for them — not for the people. It’s about gerrymandering on a scale that could decide control of Congress before a single vote is cast. It’s about whether our democracy still belongs to voters at all. I will not stand by while that happens.”
Sommer Foster, executive director of Michigan Voices, said the group was “deeply disappointed,” by the decision.
“This ruling rolls back decades of hard-fought progress for equal representation, attempts to silence voters of color, and weakens our democracy,” she said. “Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, we will continue to fight for everyone’s full and equitable access to the democratic process.”
Voters Not Politicians Executive Director Christy McGillivray in a statement said the decision means all gerrymandering, racial and partisan, is legal.
“By erasing federal protections for minority voters, politicians and political parties can now draw maps that guarantee wins for their own candidates and effectively nullify the power of all voters to choose their own representatives at the congressional, state and local level,” she said in a statement.
Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for U.S. Senate, said the decision is “a devastating blow to democracy.”
“The Voting Rights Act was passed to ensure equal representation in our democracy,” he said.
“The SCOTUS decision today guts the prohibition on racial gerrymandering, effectively using the redlining of the past to rob Black folks of equal representation in the future.”
Democratic Association of Secretaries of State Executive Director Chelsey Wininger called it an “overly corrupt ruling,” that reduces representation for voters of color across the country.
“At a time when the Supreme Court and the White House are hostile to Americans exercising their basic right to vote, it has never been more important that we elect Democratic secretaries of state who will fight to protect the rights of all Americans to legally cast a ballot and have confidence that it will be counted,” Wininger said.
Michigan’s Independent Redistricting Commission faced its own litigation after the body drew maps for the first time in 2021. A court found the body violated the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause for using race as predominant factor in drawing its House and Senate configurations for the Detroit area.
The commission redrew several districts that critics again claimed violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act because the commission drew only eight majority-minority districts, while the challengers said there could have been more. Those claims were rejected.
For the SCOTUS decision, the immediate result of the decision is likely to impact only one district in Congress, held by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat. But in the longer term, it is likely to pour fuel on the mid-decade redistricting wars that have broken out across the country.
Though it is too late for most states — with the exception of Florida — to redraw district lines ahead of this year’s elections, Republican-led states are likely to revisit their own district lines in the coming years, potentially dismantling many majority-minority districts across the South.
Reading her dissent from the bench to underscore her disagreement, Kagan presaged the assault on majority-minority districts ahead.
“After today, those districts exist only on sufferance, and probably not for long,” Kagan wrote. “If other States follow Louisiana’s lead, the minority citizens residing there will no longer have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. And minority representation in government institutions will sharply decline.”
Legal experts said the decision would not completely erase Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from denying or abridging the right to vote on the basis of race or color — but that it would make applications of Section 2 much more difficult to overcome.
“It is hard to overstate how much this weakens the Voting Rights Act,” wrote Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA School of Law. “Justice Alito knows exactly what he’s doing: make it seem like he’s not gutting the Voting Rights Act through technical language, turning both the statute and the Constitution on its head.”
Gongwer News Service
Michigan Democrats slammed a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Wednesday that struck down Louisiana’s congressional district map lines, ruling the creation of a second Black-majority district in a state where about a third of residents are Black represented an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The ruling could have significant implications when the state’s redistricting commission redraws U.S. House lines ahead of the 2032 election cycle. Detroit, one of the nation’s largest majority Black cities, traditionally has been split in half for the U.S. House to create an opportunity to elect two members who are Black.
However, for the first time since the 1950s, Detroit has no Black representation in Congress.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson called the ruling “a slap in the face of democracy.”
In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by the court’s five conservative justices, the Supreme Court held the Voting Rights Act did not obligate Louisiana to draw a second majority-minority district. Alito’s decision said the Legislature’s use of racial data in drawing a second Black-majority district was unconstitutional.
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, has been closely watched by voting rights activists who had feared the court would gut the Voting Rights Act. Several non-Black voters challenged Louisiana’s new map after the Legislature redrew it in 2024, arguing they had been denied their rights by the creation of a new district.
The court agreed.
“The Constitution almost never permits a State to discriminate on the basis of race, and such discrimination triggers strict scrutiny,” Alito wrote.
In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court’s liberal wing, said the decision “will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.”
Benson, who is running for governor, said the decision shows the importance of state leaders “who take seriously our moral responsibility to protect every citizen’s right to vote in free and fair elections.”
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is one of the most important tools we have to ensure the ‘one person, one vote’ protections in our Constitution are made real for every American,” Benson said. “The Court’s decision to weaken it is an insult to the millions who fought and bled during the civil rights movement and will have disastrous consequences for communities of color across the country.”
Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, the endorsed Democratic nominee for secretary of state, in a statement said the decision, “guts one of the most important civil rights protections in our nation’s history and opens the door to more MAGA manipulation of our elections and our democracy.”
“This ruling is part of a broader MAGA plan to rig the system so it works for them — not for the people. It’s about gerrymandering on a scale that could decide control of Congress before a single vote is cast. It’s about whether our democracy still belongs to voters at all. I will not stand by while that happens.”
Sommer Foster, executive director of Michigan Voices, said the group was “deeply disappointed,” by the decision.
“This ruling rolls back decades of hard-fought progress for equal representation, attempts to silence voters of color, and weakens our democracy,” she said. “Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, we will continue to fight for everyone’s full and equitable access to the democratic process.”
Voters Not Politicians Executive Director Christy McGillivray in a statement said the decision means all gerrymandering, racial and partisan, is legal.
“By erasing federal protections for minority voters, politicians and political parties can now draw maps that guarantee wins for their own candidates and effectively nullify the power of all voters to choose their own representatives at the congressional, state and local level,” she said in a statement.
Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for U.S. Senate, said the decision is “a devastating blow to democracy.”
“The Voting Rights Act was passed to ensure equal representation in our democracy,” he said.
“The SCOTUS decision today guts the prohibition on racial gerrymandering, effectively using the redlining of the past to rob Black folks of equal representation in the future.”
Democratic Association of Secretaries of State Executive Director Chelsey Wininger called it an “overly corrupt ruling,” that reduces representation for voters of color across the country.
“At a time when the Supreme Court and the White House are hostile to Americans exercising their basic right to vote, it has never been more important that we elect Democratic secretaries of state who will fight to protect the rights of all Americans to legally cast a ballot and have confidence that it will be counted,” Wininger said.
Michigan’s Independent Redistricting Commission faced its own litigation after the body drew maps for the first time in 2021. A court found the body violated the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause for using race as predominant factor in drawing its House and Senate configurations for the Detroit area.
The commission redrew several districts that critics again claimed violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act because the commission drew only eight majority-minority districts, while the challengers said there could have been more. Those claims were rejected.
For the SCOTUS decision, the immediate result of the decision is likely to impact only one district in Congress, held by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Democrat. But in the longer term, it is likely to pour fuel on the mid-decade redistricting wars that have broken out across the country.
Though it is too late for most states — with the exception of Florida — to redraw district lines ahead of this year’s elections, Republican-led states are likely to revisit their own district lines in the coming years, potentially dismantling many majority-minority districts across the South.
Reading her dissent from the bench to underscore her disagreement, Kagan presaged the assault on majority-minority districts ahead.
“After today, those districts exist only on sufferance, and probably not for long,” Kagan wrote. “If other States follow Louisiana’s lead, the minority citizens residing there will no longer have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. And minority representation in government institutions will sharply decline.”
Legal experts said the decision would not completely erase Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from denying or abridging the right to vote on the basis of race or color — but that it would make applications of Section 2 much more difficult to overcome.
“It is hard to overstate how much this weakens the Voting Rights Act,” wrote Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA School of Law. “Justice Alito knows exactly what he’s doing: make it seem like he’s not gutting the Voting Rights Act through technical language, turning both the statute and the Constitution on its head.”
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