The U . S . Supreme Court strikes another severe blow to the Voting Rights Act

Updated April 29, 2026 at 2:43 PM PDT The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, ruled that Louisiana's 2024 election map, which created a second majority-Black congressional district, was "an unconstitutional racial gerrymander." Although the court technically kept Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act intact, Wednesday's decision is the latest in a series of rulings that have all but gutted the landmark 1965 law, which came out of the Civil Rights Movement and protected the collective voting power of racial minorities. Experts expect the ruling to diminish minority representation across all levels of government. "This is one of the most important and most pernicious decisions of the Supreme Court in the last century," said Rick Hasen, an election law expert who leads the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA, in an interview with NPR.