The Supreme Court Wednesday heard a Republican challenge to the landmark Voting Rights Act that could kill many Black-held congressional seats and help the GOP keep control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms and beyond.
The conservative-led top court could agree to gut provisions barring racial discrimination in redistricting, a move that would open the door for Republican-held legislatures to redraw congressional maps across the South and potentially eliminate 10 or more seats held by Black or Latino Democrats.
Such a decision would amount to a political and racial earthquake that could tip the scales of control of Congress in favor of President Trump and Republicans.
It comes as Trump has already unleashed an unprecedented mid-decade battle over congressional redistricting aimed at getting Texas and other Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines to make it easier for the GOP to hold its narrow majority in the House in what is shaping up as a Democratic-leaning 2026 political environment.
Democrats in California and elsewhere are seeking to retaliate by nixing some GOP seats, but they hold fewer state houses that draw the lines and have given map-making power to independent commissions in some blue states like New York.
Republicans this week moved to grab another Democratic-held seat in North Carolina and could seek to eliminate two seats in deep red Indiana.
The case before the Supreme Court concerns the congressional map in Louisiana, which has two majority Black districts and has four other seats held by white Republicans.
The top court, by a 5-4 vote, affirmed a ruling that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in a similar case over Alabama’s congressional map in 2023. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined their three more liberal colleagues.
That decision led to new districts in Alabama and Louisiana that sent two more Black Democrats to Congress. But the court has signaled it could now reverse course, asking the parties to address whether ordering minority-majority districts is unconstitutional.
Twelve years ago, the court took a sledgehammer to another pillar of the landmark voting law that required states with a history of racial discrimination to get approval in advance from the Justice Department or federal judges before making election-related changes.
The Supreme Court has separately given state legislatures wide berth to gerrymander for political purposes, subject only to review by state supreme courts.
If the court now weakens or strikes down the Voting Rights Act, states would not be bound by any limits in how they draw electoral districts, potentially setting off a new rush to extreme gerrymandering.
Originally Published:
