The Supreme Court Is Quietly Gutting the Voting Rights Act — Again

Nearly sixty years after John Lewis bled in Selma and Martin Luther King Jr. demanded that America honor its promissory note of equality, the Supreme Court is poised to return that check marked “insufficient funds.” In Louisiana v. Callais, the conservative supermajority signals it may weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—the safeguard against maps that dilute the political power of Black voters. This turn rests on a cynical fiction: that correcting racial discrimination is itself discriminatory. We’ve seen the consequences before. Since Shelby County v. Holder gutted preclearance in 2013, states moved swiftly to purge rolls and shutter polling places in communities of color. Now the Court flirts with finishing the job, recasting our Reconstruction Amendments as colorblind commands rather than remedies for a racial caste system. To topple Section 2 would not simply rewrite a statute; it would rewrite the moral legacy of the civil rights movement. The Court must choose: defender of democracy—or its undoer. History is watching.