--- title: Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Major Provision of Voting Rights Act description: The Supreme Court undermined a major provision of the Voting Rights Act, further eroding the law long hailed as a cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-Louisiana/ author: Philip Wang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-04-29T16:40:11.363Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-12T07:05:38.287Z article:section: Politics og:title: Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Major Provision of Voting Rights Act og:description: The Supreme Court undermined a major provision of the Voting Rights Act, further eroding a law long hailed as a cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-Louisiana/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3309bbdef1abd05b/69e2830d50e0cc8bdcce9520/GettyImages-2268673355.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x100.00%2Coffset-y0.00 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: GettyImages-2268673355.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Major Provision of Voting Rights Act twitter:description: The Supreme Court undermined a major provision of the Voting Rights Act, further eroding a law long hailed as a cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3309bbdef1abd05b/69e2830d50e0cc8bdcce9520/GettyImages-2268673355.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x100.00%2Coffset-y0.00 ---  # Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Major Provision of Voting Rights Act  by [Philip Wang](https://time.com/author/philip-wang/)  ## Philip Wang Apr 29, 2026 4:40 PM UTC  Roberto Schmidt–Getty Images  by [Philip Wang](https://time.com/author/philip-wang/)  ## Philip Wang Apr 29, 2026 4:40 PM UTC The Supreme Court has moved to undermine a major provision of the [Voting Rights Act](https://time.com/7314300/voting-rights-act-history-struggle/), further eroding the law long hailed as a cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement. In a 6-3 decision, the justices ruled to overturn the current [Louisiana congressional map](https://time.com/7325167/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-louisiana-callais/) for the 2026 election. The majority opinion, written by Justice Alito, upheld a lower court ruling blocking an electoral map that would have given Louisiana a second majority-Black district, describing it as "an unconstitutional racial gerrymander." The lower court ruled that the map gave undue weight to race, violating equal protection under the Constitution. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the ruling and said that the Louisiana map "greenlights redistricting plans that will disable minority communities." **Read more:** [_The Perils of the Supreme Court Forgetting the Past_](https://time.com/7325167/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-louisiana-callais/) At issue is a congressional map that dates back to 2022, which followed the 2020 census. The Louisiana state legislature passed a map that maintained only one Black-majority district out of six, despite the fact that roughly a third of the state’s population is Black. That prompted Black voters and organizations to file a lawsuit in 2022, arguing that the map was in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by packing the Black population in one district while diluting their voting strength across the remaining five districts. The district court agreed with the voters and ordered the state to draw a new map with two majority-Black districts. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision, and the state legislature passed a new map in 2024 with two majority-Black districts while preserving the seats of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. The legal challenge to the new map immediately followed suit. A group of “non-African American voters” argued that the 2024 map violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause by sorting voters based on race. A three-judge federal district court agreed with this argument, but the Supreme Court put the district court’s order on hold ahead of the 2024 election. The pause allowed voters in Louisiana to elect Cleo Fields, a veteran House Democrat who served in another district in Louisiana after a 28-year absence. The Supreme Court first heard oral arguments in early 2025, then ordered the case to be reargued in October over the [dissent](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-109%5Fl53m.pdf) of Justice Clarence Thomas. Long before the Louisiana redistricting case, the Supreme Court had been chipping away at the Voting Rights Act in several landmark cases. In 2013, the court ruled in _Shelby County v. Holder_ that Section 4(b) of the Act was unconstitutional, essentially blocking the Department of Justice from identifying and stopping states and local governments from disenfranchising minority voters. In 2019, the justices ruled in _Rucho v. Common Cause_ that courts are not allowed to rule whether partisan gerrymandering is constitutional or legal. The justice also curtailed the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in 2021 in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, making it more difficult to challenge local voting regulations. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-Louisiana/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-Louisiana/"},"headline":"Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Major Provision of Voting Rights Act","datePublished":"2026-04-29T16:40:11.363Z","dateModified":"2026-05-12T07:05:38.287Z","description":"The Supreme Court undermined a major provision of the Voting Rights Act, further eroding the power of the legislation long hailed as a cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-Louisiana/","keywords":["voting rights","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3309bbdef1abd05b/69e2830d50e0cc8bdcce9520/GettyImages-2268673355.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x100.00%2Coffset-y0.00&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Philip Wang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/philip-wang/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3309bbdef1abd05b/69e2830d50e0cc8bdcce9520/GettyImages-2268673355.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x100.00%2Coffset-y0.00&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GettyImages-2268673355.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"Roberto Schmidt–Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/voting-rights/","name":"voting rights"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/17/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-Louisiana/","name":"Supreme Court Ruling Weakens Major Provision of Voting Rights Act"}}]}] ```