The Rev. Bernard LaFayette (center, in wheelchair and cloth hat) holds the hand of his wife Kate as they are carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 9, 2025, as part of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1965 attack on peaceful civil rights protesters that led to the Selma to Montgomery March and the passage of the Bill election. LaFayette campaigned for Selma voting rights in 1965 and survived an assassination attempt. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act sent Black Democrats in the House into a tailspin on Wednesday as they faced a fresh reality in which Republicans could unseat some of them and limit the ability of Black voters to elect candidates in the future.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus he promised to fight court decision. They demanded fresh votes on federal voting rights legislation that has lagged for several years and urged voters to turn out in the November election.
But with a Republican-controlled Congress for at least the rest of the year and a Republican White House for at least the next two and a half years, the prospect of major fresh voting rights legislation becoming law appears slim in the near term.
“This will pave the way for the largest reduction in black and minority voter representation since the years following Reconstruction,” Alabama Democrat Terri Sewell said of the court’s decision, referring to the post-Civil War period in the South.
Republicans could ultimately secure up to 19 House seats nationwide as a direct result of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to projections by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters.
As of August 4, 2025, there were 61 Black members of the House in Congress, including two delegates and five senators, According to Congressional Research Service.
Racial gerrymander
In Decision 6-3 written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because it unnecessarily created a second district in which the majority of residents were Black.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act previously restricted states from using maps that diluted the voting power of minority citizens. Justice Elena Kagan, one of the Court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent that the decision would now allow states to dilute the voting power of minority voters without legal consequences.
Republicans welcomed the decision, with many saying race should not play a role in redistricting. President Donald Trump, briefed on the ruling by reporters and confident it would lend a hand Republicans, exclaimed, “I love it.”
Florida legislators approved the fresh map within a few hours of issuing the opinion. A proposal introduced earlier this week by Gov. Ron DeSantis aims to give Republicans four additional seats in the House of Representatives. DeSantis cited the court’s decision, before it was announced, aimed at getting lawmakers to adopt the fresh map.
GOP candidates and officials in other states have urged state lawmakers to move quickly to redraw maps, even with primary elections approaching. Even if only a petite number of states introduce fresh gerrymanders this year, the Supreme Court’s decision will likely be triggered another, larger wave of changes in constituencies in the next two years before the 2028 elections.
“The Court rightly recognized that the South has made extraordinary progress and that laws designed for another era do not reflect current realities,” Steve Marshall, a Republican, Alabama Attorney General, said in a statement.
Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement that the decision “restores fairness, strengthens confidence in our elections and ensures that every voter is treated equally under the law.”
The Supreme Court in 2019 allowed states to redraw maps for political gain, ruling that federal courts would no longer rule on partisan gerrymandering cases. That previous decision, combined with Wednesday’s opinion, gives states wide leeway to draw maps that limit minority voting power if they are sold as politically necessary.
Bloody Sunday
Sewell represents the district that includes Selma, where civil rights activist and future U.S. Republican John Lewis of Georgia and other marchers were beaten by state troopers in 1965 while walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an episode titled Bloody Sunday.
The beatings helped Congress pass the Voting Rights Act later that year – the same law that the Supreme Court weakened on Wednesday.
“The court just gave states permission to use gerry partisan gerrymandering as a massive excuse to deny black and minority voters a voice in our democracy,” Sewell said.
Earlier this year in Missouri, the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a map aimed at unseating Republican Sen. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who was Kansas City’s first black mayor. The state Supreme Court is considering a legal challenge that could prevent the map from going into effect before the November election.
In a statement Wednesday, Cleaver called the opinion “deeply disrespectful to the generations of African Americans and civil rights activists who gave their freedom, their blood and even their lives to make this possible.”
Obama criticizes the decision
Former President Barack Obama condemned the decision as another example of how the majority of the current Supreme Court appears determined to “abandon its critical role” in ensuring equal participation in American democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups from majority overreach.
“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome,” Obama said in a statement. “But this will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers – not just in the upcoming midterm elections or high-profile races, but in every election and at every level.
Several Democrats said Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a Democratic-sponsored measure to restore preclearance — a requirement that requires states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before making voting changes. The Supreme Court effectively stayed the initial approval in 2013.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the bill in 2021, but it stalled in the Senate. Democrats could likely pass the bill again if they retake the House in November, but they will again face a likely filibuster in the Senate. Even if they succeed in passing the bill, Trump will surely veto it.
Rep. Cleo Fields, a Democrat from Louisiana whose district was deemed an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, sought to place the court’s decision in a broader, historical context.
Looking ahead to the mid-term
Recalling Louisiana’s Jim Crow past, he said the state required citizens to recite the preamble to the Constitution before registering to vote.
“If you told me I had to jump a certain height, I probably could do it. Tell me I had to run a certain distance, I could probably do it, too. But if you told me I had to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it — I need the help of my government,” Fields said, adding that this is why Congress must pass John Lewis Voting Rights Support Act.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the Supreme Court’s conservative majority “illegitimate” and said the opinion was unacceptable but not unexpected.
Recognizing the decision as a defeat, America has a chance to bounce back in the upcoming elections, he said.
Jeffries, who is expected to become speaker if Democrats retake the House in November, said one of the chamber’s first actions would be to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
“So that we can end the era of voter suppression in America once and for all,” Jeffries said.
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report
