Rev. Bernard LaFayette (center, in wheelchair and wearing cloth cap) holds his wife Kate’s hand as she is wheeled across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 9, 2025, as part of commemorative ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1965 attack on peaceful civil rights demonstrators that led to the Selma to Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act. LaFayette led the Selma voting rights campaign in 1965 and survived an assassination attempt. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down federal voting rights law left Black Democrats in the U.S. House reeling on Wednesday as they faced a modern reality in which Republicans could force some of them out of office and limit Black voters’ ability to elect candidates in the future.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus sworn to fight the court’s decision. They called for modern votes on federal voting rights legislation that has been stalled for several years and urged voters to take part 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 prospects of major modern voting rights legislation taking effect in the near future appear slim.
“It will pave the way for the greatest decline in the representation of black and minority voters since the years after Reconstruction,” Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, said of the court’s decision, referring to the post-Civil War era in the South.
According to a forecast by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates for black voters, Republicans could ultimately directly secure up to 19 U.S. House seats nationwide as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision.
As of August 4, 2025, Congress included 61 Black members of the House of Representatives, including two delegates and five senators. accordingly the Congressional Research Service.
Racist gerrymander
In one 6-3 decision In the ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map was unconstitutional racial discrimination because it unnecessarily created a second district in which the majority of residents were black.
Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, states were previously prohibited from using maps that weaken the voting rights 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 rights of minority voters without legal consequences.
Republicans applauded the decision and many said race should not play a role in redistricting. President Donald Trump, briefed by reporters on the ruling and saying it would facilitate Republicans, exclaimed, “I love it.”
Florida legislature approved a modern map within a few hours of the statement. The proposal put forward by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this week aims to secure four additional House seats for Republicans. DeSantis had already cited the court’s decision before its release to urge lawmakers to adopt the modern map.
GOP candidates and officials in other states urged state lawmakers to act quickly and redraw the maps even as the primaries approached. Even if only a petite number of states enact modern gerrymanders this year, the Supreme Court’s decision is likely to trigger another, larger wave of redistribution over the next two years before the 2028 election.
“The Court rightly recognized that the South has made extraordinary progress and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect current reality,” Alabama’s Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.
Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican and chairman of 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 reasons and ruled that federal courts would no longer rule on partisan gerrymandering cases. That earlier decision, combined with Wednesday’s opinion, gives states wide latitude to draft maps that limit minority voting rights if they are sold as politically necessary.
Bloody Sunday
Sewell represents a district that includes Selma, where civil rights activist and future U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., was beaten along with other protesters by state troopers as he walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 in an episode called Bloody Sunday.
The strikes contributed to Congress passing 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 partisan gerrymandering as an excuse to deny Black and minority voters a voice in our democracy,” Sewell said.
In Missouri, the Republican-controlled Legislature earlier this year passed a plan aimed at ousting Rep. 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 taking effect before the November election.
In a statement Wednesday, Cleaver called the statement “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 verdict
Former President Barack Obama condemned the decision as another example of how a majority of the current Supreme Court appears intent on “abdicating its vital role” in ensuring equal participation in American democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups from majority encroachment.
“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome,” Obama said in a statement. “But that will only happen if citizens across the country who value our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers – not just in the upcoming midterms or high-profile elections, 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 aimed at restoring preclearance — a requirement that states with a history of discrimination must seek federal approval before making voting changes. The Supreme Court effectively stopped preclearance in 2013.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed the bill in 2021 but failed in the Senate. Democrats could likely pass the bill again if they retake the House in November, but would likely face a filibuster again in the Senate. Even if they managed to pass the bill, Trump would be all but certain to veto it.
Rep. Cleo Fields, a Louisiana Democrat whose district was deemed unconstitutionally racially discriminatory, sought to place the court’s decision in a broader, historical context.
Looking at the intermediate exams
Recalling Louisiana’s Jim Crow past, he said the state previously required individuals to recite the Preamble to the Constitution before registering to vote.
“If you tell me I have to jump a certain height, I could probably do that. Tell me I have to run a certain distance, I could probably do that too. But if you tell me I have to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, there’s nothing I can do about it – I need some help from my government,” Fields said, adding that’s why Congress needs to pass the bill John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the Supreme Court’s conservative majority “illegitimate” and said the opinion was unacceptable but not unexpected.
Although he acknowledged the decision was a setback, America has a chance for a comeback in the upcoming elections, he said.
Jeffries, who is slated to become speaker when 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 we can end the era of voter suppression in America once and for all,” Jeffries said.
Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report
