Supreme Court unexpectedly upholds provision prohibiting racial gerrymandering

The setting sun illuminates the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 10.

Patrick Semansky/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday stepped back from the brink of totally gutting the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.

By a vote of 5 to 4, a coalition of liberal and conservative justices essentially upheld the court’s 1986 decision requiring that in states where voting is racially polarized, the legislature must create the maximum number of majority Black or near-majority Black congressional districts, using traditional redistricting criteria.

The opinion does not “diminish or disregard the concern” that the VRA “may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the States,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “Instead, the Court simply holds that a faithful application of precedent and a fair reading of the record do not bear those concerns out here.”

The opinion was unexpected. On two previous occasions, the conservative court has acted to gut provisions of the Voting Rights Act, leaving the once-hailed milestone legislation now a hollowed out shell. But this decision appears to have left redistricting’s last remaining guardrail intact, unlike the other provisions that have been struck down or neutered.

At issue was Alabama’s congressional redistricting plan, adopted by the Republican dominated state legislature after the 2020 census. Twenty seven percent, more than a quarter of the state’s population, is African American, but because of the way the congressional district lines are drawn, minority voters have a realistic chance of electing the candidate of their choice in…