Balanced, data-driven maps provide clear representation without racial gerrymandering, which courts frequently challenge. In that regard, Virginia — at least in 2017 and 2020 — showed a path forward in the struggle to ensure fair voting for minority populations, guest columnist Phillip Thompson writes.
The Supreme Court’s recent voting rights decisions are reshaping the political landscape in ways that will significantly impact Black voters and Black representation across the country. Taken together, these rulings represent a steady weakening of the legal protections that made modern Black political representation possible after the civil rights movement.
Yet while the Court continues to narrow the Voting Rights Act, Virginia’s recent experience offers an important lesson about how fair maps and civic participation can still protect and expand Black political power.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais underscores the increasingly precarious nature of protections under the Voting Rights Act. After lower courts determined that Louisiana likely failed to ensure Black voters had equitable opportunities to elect candidates of their preference, the state responded by establishing a second majority-Black congressional district.
However, the Supreme Court expressed considerable skepticism regarding this solution, indicating that measures aimed at remedying racial vote dilution may themselves encounter constitutional scrutiny if race is perceived as a predominant factor in redistricting. This creates a significant practical dilemma: states now risk legal challenges both for insufficiently representing Black voters and for attempting corrective actions.
The Callais decision builds upon a series of Supreme Court cases that have gradually diminished the scope of the Voting Rights Act and curtailed federal authority over discriminatory voting practices.
In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court eliminated preclearance requirements, which previously mandated that jurisdictions with histories of discrimination obtain federal approval before modifying voting laws or district boundaries.
Subsequently, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the Court heightened the evidentiary standards needed to challenge discriminatory voting statutes under Section 2. While Allen v. Milligan reaffirmed the applicability of Section 2 to redistricting, it did not reinstate the broader safeguards formerly in place.
Collectively, these rulings afford states greater latitude to enact election laws and draw districts that may disproportionately affect Black voters, provided they offer race-neutral rationales.
The consequences are already appearing. In Texas, congressional districts represented by Black lawmakers have been redrawn in ways that threaten to weaken or eliminate those seats altogether. These changes are being defended as race-neutral even though their practical effect is obvious: reducing Black political influence and limiting the ability of Black voters to elect candidates of their choice. This is precisely the kind of conduct the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to prevent.
Prior to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, Black political representation in the southern United States was virtually absent. Despite substantial Black populations throughout Southern states, mechanisms such as literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, violence, and deliberate exclusion effectively barred Black citizens from meaningful participation in the political process.
After Reconstruction and the cessation of federal oversight, states rapidly implemented measures intended to restrict Black political engagement. Jim Crow laws, racial violence, economic reprisals and lynching were used to shape voting patterns and maintain political power, leading to the loss of Black representation in Congress and state legislatures in the South for decades. These events highlight the risks of diminished federal oversight.
But Virginia’s recent history may present another path.
Between 2015 and 2017, federal courts found that Virginia had engaged in racial gerrymandering by packing Black voters into a single district that stretched from Norfolk to Richmond. This district was defended as being compliant with the Voting Rights Act.
The courts, however, determined that concentrating Black voters into a single district and drawing absurd district lines to accomplish that end diluted Black political influence across the broader political landscape and limited their ability to shape elections outside those districts. The resulting new map that was certified by the courts helped to produce a second Black congressional representative in Virginia. In that case, a “fair map” increased Black representation.
That lesson became even clearer after Virginia voters approved the 2020 constitutional amendment, choosing data-driven mapping over partisan manipulation. Since the 2021 redistricting cycle, Black representation in both the Virginia House of Delegates and Virginia State Senate has increased substantially, a net positive for the 20% of the state’s population who are African American and anyone who believes diversity and inclusivity strengthen state government.
Balanced, data-driven maps provide clear representation without racial gerrymandering, which courts frequently challenge. In that regard, Virginia — at least in 2017 and 2020 — showed a path forward in the struggle to ensure fair voting for minority populations. Virginia also demonstrated positive progress by enacting its own Voting Rights Act, sponsored in 2021 by then-state Sen. Jennifer McClellan.
A strategic realignment is necessary in America if Black political representation continues under the attack of certain forces in this country. Given the Supreme Court’s hostility on race-conscious remedies and the reduction of federal oversight, safeguarding Black political representation, particularly in Southern states, will require new focus, lest we see a continuation of the radical racial gerrymandering like we see in Texas.
Fair maps also enhance political participation; when individuals believe their votes matter, voter turnout increases. Furthermore, fair maps can enhance voter engagement and contribute to more favorable outcomes for the electorate.
The Voting Rights Act was never meant to provide permanent protections. The hope underlining the law was that our society would move beyond racial targeting, but recent events make clear that it has not. Virginia’s experience demonstrates that even as the Supreme Court continues to weaken protections under the Voting Rights Act, fair electoral maps can still produce meaningful progress for Black representation.
Looking ahead, it is critical for all Americans to support fair and equitable redistricting because even well-intentioned race-conscious remedies will continue to face increasing legal scrutiny in the federal courts.
The fight for fair representation did not end with the civil rights movement, and it will not end with this Supreme Court. The question now is whether current and future generations are prepared to defend their right to vote with the same determination that previous generations fought to secure it.