Justice Clarence Thomas Poised To Transform Voting Rights Law/ Newslooks/ WASHINGTON/ J. Mansour/ Morning Edition/ Justice Clarence Thomas may finally have enough support on the Supreme Court to undermine Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voting power. A pending Louisiana redistricting case signals a possible legal shift, with Thomas pressing to declare race-based voting protections unconstitutional. The outcome could reshape elections nationwide, intensifying partisan battles over voting rights.
Clarence Thomas Poised To Transform Voting Rights Law: Quick Looks
- Thomas’s Long Campaign: Thomas has urged gutting VRA protections for decades.
- Louisiana Case Center Stage: Supreme Court rearguing a key redistricting dispute.
- New Conservative Bloc: Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, Barrett show potential alignment.
- Section 2 At Risk: Debate centers on racial considerations in district maps.
- Partisan Ramifications: VRA protections crucial for minority voters who lean Democratic.
- Private Lawsuits Threatened: Courts question whether private groups can enforce VRA rights.
- Roberts On Precedent: Chief Justice tries balancing act to preserve racial fairness rules.
- High Stakes for 2026: Outcome could reshape congressional maps before next elections.
Justice Clarence Thomas Poised To Transform Voting Rights Law
Deep Look
For more than thirty years, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has made no secret of his disdain for a core piece of America’s civil rights architecture: the Voting Rights Act. What was once viewed as a “radical” position, endorsed only by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, now seems on the brink of becoming Supreme Court doctrine, thanks to a shifting conservative majority and an explosive new redistricting case out of Louisiana.
At the heart of the brewing storm is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a crucial provision that prohibits electoral practices diluting the voting power of racial minorities. Since 1982, courts have interpreted Section 2 to mean that race must sometimes be considered to ensure minority voters have a fair chance to elect candidates of their choice. For decades, this principle has served as a legal shield for Black, Hispanic, Native American, and other communities whose voting power might otherwise be fractured.
Yet Justice Thomas has argued that this very notion — that race should be a factor in drawing voting districts — is unconstitutional. In his view, the Voting Rights Act has evolved into a tool that fuels racial division, rather than healing it.
“The statute was originally perceived as a remedial provision directed specifically at eradicating discriminatory practices that restricted Blacks’ ability to register and vote in the segregated South,” Thomas wrote as early as 1994 in a dissenting opinion. “Now, the Act has grown into something entirely different… few devices could be better designed to exacerbate racial tensions than the consciously segregated districting system currently being constructed in the name of the Voting Rights Act.”
Thomas’s stance stood isolated for years. But recent shifts in the Supreme Court’s composition have provided him with potential allies. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett have all expressed skepticism about race-conscious remedies in redistricting. Two years ago, all four dissenters in a major Alabama redistricting case — Allen v. Milligan — signaled openness to scrapping or substantially narrowing Section 2’s protections.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts, who once authored the opinion dismantling another key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, has become the unexpected guardian of Section 2, insisting that courts must still consider race to fix discriminatory maps. In Allen, Roberts wrote that “Section 2 itself demands consideration of race” and described redistricting as “a quintessentially race-conscious calculus.”
But the balance of power on the court remains in flux.
Louisiana Case A Potential Turning Point
The stage for the next showdown is Louisiana. The current Supreme Court term has been roiled by a dispute over whether the state must redraw its congressional map to create a second majority-Black district. Louisiana’s Black population is roughly one-third of the state’s total, but under the map drawn in 2022, only one of six congressional districts had a Black majority.
A lower federal court ruled the map likely violated Section 2, prompting the legislature to redraw boundaries to include a second majority-Black district. However, the revised map sparked new litigation, this time from a group of mostly White voters, who claim it constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander — echoing many of Thomas’s longstanding arguments.
The Supreme Court heard arguments on the case in March but, in a rare move, announced on June 27 that it would order reargument in its next term beginning in October. The move suggests the justices remain divided — and hints that broader legal doctrines may be at stake.
Notably, Justice Thomas filed a six-page dissent to the court’s decision to delay. In it, he urged the court to declare outright that Section 2’s race-conscious requirements violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. “I am hopeful that this Court will soon realize that the conflict its Section 2 jurisprudence has sown with the Constitution is too severe to ignore,” he wrote.
Although no other justice joined his dissent in this instance, past opinions indicate that Thomas’s colleagues may be inching closer to his view. Gorsuch has described the court’s voting rights jurisprudence as a “disastrous misadventure,” while Alito and Barrett have voiced concerns that race-based remedies perpetuate discrimination rather than cure it.
During oral arguments, even Roberts seemed skeptical of Louisiana’s new map, describing one of the new districts as “a snake that runs from one end of the state to the other.” Gorsuch pressed further, questioning whether any consideration of race can be reconciled with the 14th Amendment.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh added another wrinkle, suggesting there should be a time limit on how long states are required to consider race when drawing districts under Section 2.
Impact on 2026 Elections and Beyond
The implications of a Supreme Court ruling scaling back or overturning Section 2 are enormous. States could be freed from legal obligations to create majority-minority districts, potentially diluting minority voting power in Congress and state legislatures. Because Black, Hispanic, and other minority voters tend to lean Democratic, the fallout could dramatically alter the political landscape in battleground states ahead of the 2026 midterms and future presidential races.
Civil rights groups are deeply alarmed. Stuart Naifeh of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who argued in defense of Louisiana’s remedial map, insists that Thomas’s views remain extreme and out of sync with decades of legal precedent.
“I would like to think that his view of the VRA is still a radical view on this court,” Naifeh said, adding that established case law carefully balances racial considerations with other political factors like protecting incumbents.
Who Has the Right to Enforce Section 2?
Further complicating the future of the Voting Rights Act is a brewing legal question over who can enforce it. Historically, private individuals and advocacy groups have filed lawsuits under Section 2. But recent decisions from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have challenged this tradition, ruling that only the federal government has the right to bring such cases.
In a 2023 Arkansas case, the court cited Thomas and Gorsuch’s writings in concluding that whether private plaintiffs have a right to sue under Section 2 remains an “open question.” A subsequent 2024 decision from North Dakota struck down Native American-drawn districts on similar grounds. Lawyers for the tribes affected plan to appeal to the Supreme Court, setting up yet another potential blockbuster voting rights case.
With President Donald Trump’s Justice Department withdrawing from many voting rights battles, civil rights groups fear that leaving enforcement solely to the federal government would leave minority voters unprotected.
“There is no other circuit in the country in which private plaintiffs are unable to enforce their rights under Section 2,” attorneys for the North Dakota tribes argued in court filings, warning that Americans in the 8th Circuit states now have “fewer enforceable voting rights than citizens in every other state in the country.”
The Road Ahead
Justice Clarence Thomas’s crusade against Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has always been more than a legal theory — it’s a vision of rolling back decades of civil rights protections in American elections. As the court gears up for another round of arguments this fall, the crucial question remains: Will Thomas finally have the votes he needs to make his radical vision the law of the land?
The answer could determine the shape of America’s democracy for years to come.
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