Justices kept the law on the books but drained it of the power to actually protect voters

Published April 30, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)

The Supreme Court on November 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

In its Louisiana v. Callais decision Wednesday, the Supreme Court nominally affirmed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , while simultaneously nullifying its intended effect, striking a devastating blow to voting rights in the United States, civil rights advocates and attorneys say, warning that it could thrust the United States back to a pre-civil rights era.

The Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision siding with a group of self-described “non-African American” voters in a case centering on whether the state had racially gerrymandered its congressional map by adhering to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and drawing a proportional number of majority Black districts to the percentage of Black residents in the state.

The case came on the heels of a long legal battle in the…