Black members of Congress are preparing for a disruptive change in their ranks next Supreme Court ruling I devoured a major portion of Voting Rights Act Which protected minority communities in political redistricting and helped strengthen their representation.
Wednesday’s decision paves the way for Republican-led states to redraw US House districts without regard to race, potentially creating more GOP-friendly seats.
Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters that her members and Democrats will fight the effects of the ruling.
“The Supreme Court has opened the door to a coordinated attack on black voters across the country,” Clark said. “This is an outright power grab.”
Under Article 2 of Voting Rights ActVoters can challenge electoral maps that appear to weaken the ability of minority communities to elect representatives of their choice. The expected wave of Redistricting Congress Republican-controlled states after Wednesday’s ruling, especially for the 2028 elections and beyond, will likely result in a much smaller Black Caucus.
Clark was joined by more than a dozen of the 60-member Black Caucus, including Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Their reactions to the court’s decision ranged from anger, defiance, and mourning.
It’s not clear how many seats will ultimately be affected by the ruling, but redistricting experts expect so More than a dozen Now it can be swept away.
Representative Troy Carter, one of two black Democrats from Louisiana, the state at the center of the case, called the ruling “a devastating blow to our democracy, plain and simple.”
Republican leaders in Several southern states We’ve already discussed how to implement the ruling and create new, GOP-friendly congressional maps. in FloridaRepublicans wasted no time in approving a new map for the U.S. House of Representatives, part of which redrew one district created to elect a black representative.
“I would be surprised if we didn’t see former slaveholding states moving at lightning speed to target areas that provide Black voters and other voters of color an equal opportunity to elect candidates,” said Christine Clark, general counsel for the NAACP and the first Black woman to serve as assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
She added that it is not clear whether state voting laws or constitutional prohibitions against racial discrimination would provide any protection.
Republican officials and black conservatives hailed the decision as a victory against race-based mandates. Civil rights laws are not intended to “institutionalize racial boundary drawing as a default feature of our political system,” Linda Lee Tarver of the Black Leadership Network Project 21 said in a statement.
The Congressional Black Caucus was formed in 1971 after court-ordered redistricting under the Voting Rights Act, passed just six years earlier, sent more minorities to Congress.
The number of black representatives in Congress jumped from nine to 13. Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, decided to expand the Democratic Select Committee created by Democratic Representative Charles Diggs in the 1960s to include the more formal black caucus in Congress.
The CBC raised its profile in its first year when it boycotted President Richard Nixon’s State of the Union address after he refused to meet the group. Nixon eventually relented. The group created a list of more than 60 recommendations to help the Black community, including combating racism and building adequate housing. She has earned the nickname “the conscience of Congress.”
“This caucus had an important voice in American politics — the things we were able to achieve together, creating equity and access,” Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said during a separate news conference on Wednesday. “And I fear that with this ruling, we could see that pool shrink in a very significant way.”
The ruling upset Thomas Johnson when he heard about it while visiting the Louisiana Capitol in Baton Rouge. Johnson, who is black, is from New Orleans and is represented by Carter. He fears Republicans could redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that breaks up majority-black districts.
“I feel like this is an embarrassing attack on minorities, especially the black community,” Johnson said. “We have very little (voice) in Congress.”
Anjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who advises the Black Caucus, said he expects the group to be involved in multiple legal battles for members whose districts will be targeted after the Supreme Court ruling. He also said the ruling makes voter turnout efforts more important “if we want to change course on some of the things that are likely to happen because of this decision.”
Democratic Rep. Terry Sewell of Alabama, whose state was its center The Big Voting Rights Act Case After deciding in favor of black representation nearly three years ago, he agreed that the party now needs to focus on motivating voters ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
“Now more than ever, we need to mobilize communities across this nation — in state legislatures, in the courts, and at the ballot box,” Sewell said. “We need to vote like we’ve never voted before.” ___ Associated Press writers Leah Askarinam, Matt Brown and Ali Swenson in Washington and Sarah Klein in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.