Supreme Court rules against Louisiana voting map

The Supreme Court has made a massive decision with regards to voter rights and in particular the rights of voters of color. On April 29, SCOTUS threw out a congressional map in Louisiana that had been drawn to protect the voting power of Black residents, a decision that undercuts a landmark civil rights law.

An ideologically divided court sided 6-3 with the Trump administration and with the non-Black voters who challenged the map as relying too heavily on race to sort voters, and it did so just three years after upholding the 1965 Voting Right Act’s vote dilution protections for racial minorities. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. Justice Elena Kagan said the consequences of the majority’s decision are likely to be “far-reaching and grave,” rendering the protections of the civil rights law “all but a dead letter.”

The decision could ultimately reduce the number of Black and Hispanic members of Congress and boost Republicans’ chances of winning more seats in the U.S. House, where they currently have a thin majority. States now have a freer hand to rejigger boundaries of voting districts at all levels of government.

Stephen Montoya, a partner with Montoya, Lucero & Pastor joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss this decision and what it means for voting rights and future elections.