Rev. Al Sharpton: SCOTUS voting rights case 'will have a ripple effect' across the U.S. - Velshi - MSNBC

[Rhiannon12866]

“It will have a ripple effect all over the nation,” said Reverend Al Sharpton about an open Supreme Court case challenging the Voting Rights Act. The case, which hinges on a Louisiana congressional map, could upend the most important remaining provision of the Voting Rights Act.

“Let's remember the context of the Voting Rights Act, and Section Two was because Blacks had been discriminated against, because there were all kinds of methods used to deny us the right to vote,” Reverend Sharpton said. “So how do you now reverse that, or drop that by saying, well, it was alright to be unfair.” The Supreme court is set to hear oral arguments for this case on Wednesday. - Aired on 10/12/2025.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Deadline Legal Blog-The Voting Rights Act is at further risk as the Roberts Court hears Louisiana map appeal

The court will hear oral argument Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could further gut the landmark law that the court has already weakened.

MSNBC: The Voting Rights Act is at further risk as the Roberts Court hears Louisiana map appeal: The court will hear oral argument Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could further gut the landmark law that the court has already weakened. www.msnbc.com/deadline-whi...

— (@jwwcan.bsky.social) 2025-10-15T14:10:59.334Z

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-supreme-louisiana-map-redistricting-rcna237637

While we rightly pay attention to how the Supreme Court is empowering President Donald Trump and his administration, the justices will hold a hearing Wednesday that highlights the Roberts Court’s priorities that predate Trump and will echo long after he leaves office.

Those priorities surface in the appeal, called Callais, with the question lurking in the background of whether the Constitution is “colorblind.” Though it isn’t the direct legal question in the case, it’s a notion that Chief Justice John Roberts and his Republican-appointed colleagues have embraced, notably in the Harvard case that gutted affirmative action in 2023. The Callais appeal raises the prospect of the court cutting out the remaining pillar of the landmark Voting Rights Act on similar grounds. The result could shape future U.S. elections and further help Republicans’ electoral prospects......

Colorblindness
Following the Roberts-led court’s hollowing out of another part of the Voting Rights Act in the 2013 Shelby County case, the remaining safeguard implicated by Callais is Section 2, which prohibits racially discriminatory voting practices or procedures.

The parties present opposing views on whether taking race into account when drawing districts can be necessary to realize the law’s promise or is necessarily anathema to the Constitution in 2025.

“Section 2 authorizes race-conscious remedies only where, when, and to the extent required to respond to a ‘regrettable reality’ of ongoing unequal electoral opportunity based on race,” lawyers representing Black voters wrote to the justices ahead of the hearing. Removing that section’s protections in Louisiana “will not end discrimination there or lead to a race-blind society, but it may well lead to a severe decrease in minority representation at all levels of government in many parts of the country,” they wrote.

Meanwhile, lawyers for Louisiana countered that the “invidious classifications underlying race-based redistricting present the last significant battle in defense of our ‘color blind’ Constitution.” They called the battle an “easy” one, citing the court’s statement in the Harvard affirmative action case that eliminating racial discrimination “means eliminating all of it.” The state said that means “no quarter for race-based redistricting.”

I am nervous. I remember Roberts gutting the Voting Rights Act in his Shelby County opinion where Roberts claimed that all racial discrimination had ended and so the Voting Rights Act was no longer needed.