A court ruling could shrink Black representation in Congress : NPR

The United States could be headed toward the largest-ever decline in representation by Black members of Congress, depending on how the Supreme Court rules in a closely watched redistricting case about the Voting Rights Act.

For decades, the landmark law that came out of the Civil Rights Movement has protected the collective voting power of racial minorities when political maps are redrawn. Its provisions have also boosted the number of seats in the House of Representatives filled by Black lawmakers.

That’s largely because in many Southern states — where voting is often polarized between a Republican-supporting white majority and a Democratic-supporting Black minority — political mapmakers have drawn a certain kind of district to get in line with the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 provisions. In these districts, racial-minority voters make up a population large enough to have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidates.

But at an October hearing last year for the redistricting case about Louisiana’s congressional map, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared inclined to issue this year another in a series of decisions that have weakened the Voting Rights Act — this time its Section 2 protections in redistricting.

That kind of ruling could put at risk at least 15 House districts currently represented by a Black member of Congress, an NPR analysis has found. Each of those districts has a sizable racial-minority population, is in a state where Republican lawmakers control redistricting and, for now at least, is likely protected by Section 2. Factoring in newly redrawn districts in Missouri and Texas, which were not included in NPR’s analysis, could raise the tally of at-risk districts higher.

If Republican-led states no longer have to follow current redistricting provisions under Section 2, it’s unclear how many Democratic-represented districts could be eliminated, because GOP-led legislatures may see a partisan advantage in preserving some of those districts. The timing of such moves is also unclear, as state lawmakers await the Supreme Court ruling.

Still, the loss of even a handful of those at-risk districts could fuel a record drop in the number of Black representatives. The current record drop was set by the 45th Congress, which began in 1877 and had four fewer House districts represented by Black lawmakers than the previous session.

How Black representation in Congress has grown after the Civil War

The post-Civil War Reconstruction era brought the start of Black representation on Capitol Hill in 1870, around the time when Black men gained the right to vote. The rise of racist poll taxes, literacy tests and threats of violence, however, whittled away the rights of Black voters until the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

For a century after the Civil War, the number of Black-represented House districts in each Congress stayed in the single digits or at zero. That continued until 1969, when the number began gradually increasing through today to 63 districts, or about 14% of the current House.

What the Supreme Court decides in the Louisiana case will set the stage for where that trend line goes.

At the center of the case is one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts. Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature drew it after a related Section 2 lawsuit led by Press Robinson, a Black voter and civil rights activist in Baton Rouge.

Robinson says he fears that without Section 2’s protections, Black representation in Congress and at other levels of government will be diminished to “a very minor scale.”

“And that is not where we should be in 2026,” adds Robinson, who became the first Black elected member of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board in 1980 after filing a federal lawsuit over the board’s use of an election system that he argued diluted the power of Black voters.

Robinson’s concerns about Section 2’s future have been echoed by current members of Congress.

“For so many of us here today, Section 2 is why we stand before you as members of the Congressional Black Caucus,” said Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama at a press conference, after the Supreme Court’s October hearing for the Louisiana case. “If this court strikes down these critical provisions, it would not only reverse decades of precedent, but it would also take us back to a dark time in our nation’s history, a time when discrimination against minority voters went unchecked.”

Opponents of those Section 2 provisions claim, however, that they violate the Constitution.

In the Supreme Court case, Louisiana’s Republican state officials say race should play no role “in any form” when redrawing voting maps. A group of self-described “non-African American” voters from the state argue that the court should put an end to race-based redistricting under Section 2 now that it has ruled against race-based affirmative action at colleges and universities. Similarly, the Justice Department under the Trump administration has criticized the use of Section 2 provisions in redistricting as “a form of electoral race-based affirmative action to undo a State’s constitutional pursuit of political ends.”

A weakening of Section 2 could also reduce Latino representation

Additional restrictions on how race can be factored into redistricting could give political mapmakers more leeway to neutralize the collective power of minority voters and lead to fewer representatives of color getting elected, says Katherine Tate, a professor of political science at Brown University.

“Minority members of Congress are more likely to sponsor bills that talk about minority interests, even controlling for political party. So diversity really is important in terms of fair representation, equal representation of American voters,” explains Tate, who has written books about Black representation in Congress.

Any weakening of Section 2’s current redistricting provisions also puts at risk representation by other racial and ethnic minorities and at lower levels of government.

As much as 11% of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could be lost, and close to 200 Democratic-held state legislative seats, mostly representing majority-Black districts in the South, could be eliminated, according to estimates by the voting rights advocacy groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund.

Those changes may play out over years, says Lauren Groh-Wargo, Fair Fight Action’s CEO.

“We could see a very rapid, effective dismantling of Black representation at the congressional level and possibly at the state legislative level in a couple of states. I think other states may hold off and wait to do their gerrymandering” until the current wave of mid-decade congressional redistricting is over, Groh-Wargo adds.

It’s “always a fight”

Tate, the political scientist at Brown University, sees the Louisiana redistricting case returning the Supreme Court to a role from more than 150 years ago.

Tate recalls the series of court decisions beginning in the 1870s that eroded the civil rights gains of the Reconstruction era for Black citizens, including millions of formerly enslaved people. Now, the court is weighing the fate of a key remaining section of the Voting Rights Act — a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement that historians consider a second Reconstruction.

“It’ll be like the first Reconstruction, why that failed — because of the Supreme Court rulings,” Tate says. “The end of the second Reconstruction will be because of the Supreme Court.”

For Robinson of Baton Rouge, it’s all a reminder that the struggle for fair representation never ends.

“When it comes to voting rights and other rights for people of color, it’s always a fight,” Robinson says. “There’s never a time that we get what we deserve and that we should have without having to fight for it.”

Edited by Benjamin Swasey