At 20 years of age I was only tangentially aware of the civil rights movement. That is, I knew it was a big deal and admired Martin Luther King. But I'd grown up oin all-white suburban Long Island, NY - and my first experience with Black people as peers was with classmates at Brooklyn Prep. But those were Jesuit High School boys...academically strong, studying four years of Latin, three of classical Greek and two of either French or German.
So when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed by Lyndon Johnson it just seemed logical, a step past the obviously ignorant southern segregationists. After all - we all remembered Alabama 's "segregation now, segregation forever" Governor George Wallace standing defiantly to obstruct the admission of Black students to the University of Alabama.
But today's rationalizations - voiced usually in "race neutral" rhtoric - employ less transparent rationales. But Donald Trump they declare all race-consciousness to be unlawful. Justice Roberts may be a savior in the view of Cornell Law Prof Michael Dorf in a pieced posted today.
The Supreme Court has now listed for reargument Louisana v. Calais.
It is a chellenge to the court-ordered creation of a second Black majoirty Congressional District in Louisiana.
ORDER IN PENDING CASES24-109 ) LOUISIANA V. CALLAIS, PHILLIP, ET AL.
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24-110 ) ROBINSON, PRESS, ET AL. V. CALLAIS, PHILLIP, ET AL.
The parties are directed to file supplemental briefs addressing the following question raised [in] the Brief for Appellees: Whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution. Supplemental briefs for appellants are due on or before Wednesday, August 27, 2025. Supplemental brief for appellees is due on or before Wednesday, September 17, 2025. Reply briefs are due on or before 2 p.m., Friday, October 3, 2025
The Department of Justice website exxplains that "In 1982, Congress extended certain provisions of the Act such as Section 5 that were set to expire, and added protections for voters who required assistance in voting. At the same time, it examined the history of litigation under Section 2 since 1965 and concluded that Section 2 should be amended to provide that a plaintiff could establish a violation of the section if the evidence established that, in the context of the "totality of the circumstance of the local electoral process," the standard, practice, or procedure being challenged had the result of denying a racial or language minority an equal opportunity to participate in the political process."
The road that voting rights advocates face is rough. The cases have been listed for reargument. A decision from which Clarence Thomas dissented as causing unnecessary delay in reaching a decision. Thomas's attitude is plain. Dissenting from the order listing the cases for reargument he wrote:
[T]hese cases highlight the intractable conflict between this Court’s interpretation of §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 52 U. S. C. §10301, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Constitution is supreme over statutes, Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 178 (1803), and no intervening developments will change that. I thus see no reason to avoid deciding these cases now. In doing so, I would make clear that where this Court’s interpretation of §2 breaches the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee, the Constitution controls
Today the Republican dominated Texas legislature is engaged in a redistricting effort to create five new Republican-majority seats . Faced with certain defeat Texas Democrat legislators walked out to deny the Republicans a quorum.
There is a legislative response to this threat. It is the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2025 which would restore the preclearance regime, modernize the coverage formula, and otherwise update federal protection of voting rights. (It also would bolster Section 2, but it’s not clear that part of the bill could stand if the Court holds that Section 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause.) Put simply, it would reinvigorate and modernize the VRA.
But the John Lewis Act is likely a dead letter.
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