Former President Barack Obama condemned a Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Louisiana congressional district as an illegal racial gerrymander, calling it an attack on minority voting rights. Critics immediately pointed out that Obama had recently filmed campaign ads backing a Virginia redistricting measure that would hand Democrats 10 of the state’s 11 congressional seats.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais, invalidating a winding Louisiana district drawn in 2024 to create a second majority-Black congressional seat under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that the district was “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander” and said race had been used as the predominant factor in drawing the lines.
Obama called the ruling a gutting of civil rights law.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities, so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit ‘racial bias,'” Obama said in a statement on Wednesday. “And it serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.”
“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome. But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers – not just in the upcoming midterms or in high profile races, but in every election and every level,” he continued.”
What Obama left out: he had recently taped ads urging Virginia voters to pass a ballot measure that would redraw the state’s congressional lines to give Democrats a 10-to-1 edge. Virginia’s delegation currently sits at 6-5 in favor of Republicans. The measure Obama backed would flip that to 10-1 Democrat by concentrating Republican voters into a single district.
The SCOTUS decision set off an immediate redistricting scramble across the South. Louisiana moved Thursday to suspend its May congressional primaries while the legislature redraws its maps. The ruling narrows how broadly states can use the Voting Rights Act to justify race-based district lines, opening a legal window Republicans in several states have been waiting on for years.
Mississippi, which has majority-minority districts drawn under the same provision of the Voting Rights Act, is also expected to face redistricting pressure following the ruling.
