Justice Kagan Slams Supreme Court for Undermining Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court's recent 6-3 ruling allows states to redraw voting districts in ways that could diminish minority representation, a move that Justice Elena Kagan argues risks reversing progress made since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In her dissent regarding Louisiana v. Callais, Kagan paints a bleak picture of how states historically evaded the 15th Amendment from its inception in 1870 until the mid-20th century.
Joining her in dissent were Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor.
Kagan emphasized that while the 15th Amendment was intended to ensure racial equality in voting, it largely failed to achieve that goal for over a century.
“Especially in the South, States soon put in place a host of facially race-neutral devices to systematically disenfranchise African American citizens,” she stated. “Poll taxes, literacy tests, ‘good character’ exams, property qualifications, convoluted registration processes—all these and more, when combined with administrative discretion, effectively suppressed the Black vote.”
The impact was stark; in Louisiana, registered Black voters plummeted from 130,000 in 1896 to a mere 1,304 by 1904.
The Voting Rights Act and subsequent congressional measures aimed to rectify these injustices. Kagan contends that the court's decision represents a significant regression.
“The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—‘one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history,’” she remarked.
She elaborated on its origins: “It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.” Kagan noted that it has been consistently reauthorized by Congress, asserting that only Congress has the authority to declare it unnecessary—not the Supreme Court. “I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act,” she stated.
Kagan cautioned that this ruling signals a return to historical practices of minority voter disenfranchisement, where politicians could create majority-white districts so extreme that minority residents felt discouraged from registering to vote.
“The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave,” she warned, adding that as a result of the court’s decision, “minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process.”
“I dissent because Congress elected otherwise,” she concluded. “I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. I dissent.”
