A sweeping Supreme Court decision has scrambled the landscape of voting protections in America, prompting a fresh surge of state-level action to defend minority voters' power at the ballot box.
The court's ruling in Louisiana v Callais effectively gutted Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, the 61-year-old provision that prevented the dilution of minority voting power during district redrawing. The decision arrived at a crucial moment, just as states prepare for redistricting in an election year, and left voting rights advocates scrambling to find alternative legal weapons.
Nine states have already enacted their own voting rights acts to fill the federal void. Another 11 states, notably including several in the South, have introduced bills to create similar protections. These state-level measures typically prohibit voter suppression, vote dilution, and voter intimidation, and many require advance approval of voting changes before they take effect.
The momentum has accelerated in recent years. California led the way in 2002 with the nation's first state voting rights act. Since 2018, at least one new state statute has passed every year except 2020. Maryland's law took effect the day before the Callais decision dropped.
Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, called the ruling devastating but vowed to press forward. "We will use that tool where possible and be as aggressive as we can in trying to get state voting rights acts passed even in the most unlikely of states like Louisiana and Mississippi," she said after the decision.
Ruth Greenwood, who runs Harvard Law School's Election Law Clinic and has litigated cases under state voting rights acts in Washington and New York, noted that state courts have already upheld these measures when challenged. In her cases, settlements and protections allowed historically marginalized communities meaningful representation for the first time, she said.
Yet legal experts warn the decision could trigger fresh constitutional attacks on state voting rights acts themselves. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion raised concerns about race-conscious legislation more broadly, signaling potential trouble ahead. Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA, expects new challenges to emerge, particularly because many state laws go further than the federal statute did. One New York municipality even filed a brief in the Callais case arguing that New York's voting rights act raised graver constitutional concerns.
Still, advocates argue states retain solid legal footing. Aseem Mulji, senior legal counsel for redistricting at the Campaign Legal Center, pushed back against doomsday predictions. "States should not throw in the towel," he said, noting that state governments have long-established power to prevent racial discrimination through various means, including race-neutral approaches embedded in state voting rights acts.
Adam Lioz, senior policy counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, frames the state statutes as more than a temporary fix. They offer concrete action voters can advocate for and give lawmakers a platform to build pressure on Congress to restore federal protections. Even in hostile territory, he suggested, these proposals contrast sharply with the anti-voter measures Republicans are advancing.
The reality remains sobering. State voting rights acts cannot fully replicate the reach and power of the federal provision, and enacting them faces steeper odds in Republican-dominated Southern states where voting rights protections are most desperately needed. But voting rights organizations view them as the most viable tool available right now to shield minority voters from discrimination in local and state elections.
Author James Rodriguez: "The Supreme Court handed voting rights advocates a crushing setback, but state legislatures are stepping up where Washington failed, turning a legal disaster into a referendum on whether individual states will protect their voters."
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