BREAKING: Supreme Court Strikes Down Racial Gerrymandering in Major Victory for GOP
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Posted on Wednesday, April 29, 2026
|n a 6-3 decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court narrowed the ability of states to draw legislative districts based on race. The ruling limited a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in a move that could allow some Republican-controlled states to draw more favorable U.S. House maps for the GOP.
The case specifically centered on Louisiana’s 2024 U.S. House map, which had been redrawn to add a second majority-black district. The Court said that the new map constituted an unlawful racial gerrymander.
“Correctly understood, Section 2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Compliance with Section 2 thus could not justify the State’s use of race-based redistricting here.”
The Court’s decision notably did not strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in language minority groups. Critics of Section 2 have long held that it violates the Constitution’s equal protections clause by sorting voters based on race.
Nonetheless, liberal Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent that the verdict rendered Section 2 “all but a dead letter.”
As Mike Davis, President of the Article III Project, explained, for states to draw district lines explicitly based on race, they have to prove that they are remediating intentional discrimination. “Unless you can show intentional racial discrimination, the courts need to stop getting involved,” Davis said. “No more DEI districts.”
During oral arguments last year, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other conservative justices appeared open to the argument from those challenging Louisiana’s map that Congress intended for a “sunset period” for Section 2, allowing it to weaken over time. Opponents of Section 2 have argued that while it may have been necessary when the law was passed in 1965 to redress intentionally anti-black racial gerrymandering, it is no longer necessary.
The ruling could allow Republicans to pick up as many as a dozen seats in states that have racially gerrymandered districts that would appear to conflict with the Court’s decision. Although it is unclear how many of the maps could be changed in time for this year’s midterm elections, the decision could have enormous ramifications for control of the U.S. House in 2028 and beyond.
“The American people don’t want to see Americans segregated by race in their congressional maps, which is exactly what was happening in Louisiana,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement. “Today, the Supreme Court reaffirmed a basic constitutional principle: the government cannot discriminate on the basis of race when drawing congressional maps.”
Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
by Shane Harris
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