PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Supreme Court chief justice’s decades-long fight against the Voting Rights Act has come to an end, for now.
On June 8, the Supreme Court ruled against Alabama’s congressional map, which was redrawn in the wake of the 2020 census. The case, Allen v. Milligan, argued the state created only one Black-majority district despite the fact that more than a quarter of the population is Black.
Voters and activists argued the new map directly violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race.
SCOTUS agreed.
Alabama officials challenged the revised map, arguing the benchmark assessing VRA violations must be “race-neutral.” However, Chief Justice John Roberts said that would contradict nearly 40 years of rulings, CNN reported.
Roberts wrote, “The heart of these cases is not about the law as it exists. It is about Alabama’s attempt to remake our Section 2 jurisprudence anew.”
In the 5-4 decision, Roberts voted in favor of Black voters. The decision came as a surprise, since he spent most of his career eviscerating the Voting Rights Act, according to Politico.
In the 2013 decision Shelby County v. Holder, for example, Roberts struck down the rule that determined which states require federal approval for election changes under Section 5 — weakening one of the law’s most important aspects.
So, what influenced the court's decision now?
Dr. Susan Liebell, a political science professor at Saint Joseph's University, explains what this ruling means for democracy and the court on the newest episode of KYW Newsradio In Depth.
“There’s no doubt Section 2 is all we have left of the Voting Rights Act,” she said. “It’s good to know that it could affect elections in ways that protect mulitracial democracy because if you divide the votes of the minority, you don’t really have a democracy.”
Listen free in the player below, on the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts