Supreme Court case from Louisiana likely to reshape Voting Rights Act, legal experts say

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Thinking about how the U.S. Supreme Court will handle the Louisiana case that could reshape the Voting Rights Act, the crowning legislative achievement of the civil rights era, Southern University political science professor Albert Samuels says he can't help but think back.

Out of Louisiana, he noted, came the litigation that helped end Reconstruction laws protecting the formerly enslaved, the "grandfather clause" that kept Blacks from registering to vote and the landmark Plessy case, which enshrined Jim Crow laws limiting African American opportunities.

“Ironically, it’s Louisiana at the center of this again,” Samuels said after listening to the 2½-hour Supreme Court hearing Wednesday over whether the state Legislature — relying on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution when drawing the second Black majority congressional district now held by Cleo Fields, a Democrat from Baton Rouge.

“The court’s six conservative justices seemed inclined to effectively strike down a Black majority congressional district in Louisiana because it relied too heavily on race,” Samuels said. “If they gut or weaken the VRA, the impact will go far further than whether Cleo Fields can keep his seat.”

From their questions and comments, Samuels said, the court’s six conservative justices appear open to the arguments by the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office and the dozen White Louisiana voters, called the Callais litigants, who claimed the Constitution forbids configuring election districts based on race. Louisiana contends lower courts essentially forced the Legislature to draw a second Black majority district by lower courts.

At issue is Section 2, which allows race to play a role in redistricting when minority voter strength is diluted by packing single districts and spreading the rest of the minority population across White-majority districts.

Samuels’ observations echoed national legal commentators.

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