In the late 19th century, after Reconstruction, US federal protections for Black voters began to erode. Southern states sought to reshape their electoral systems – through poll taxes, literacy tests and districting – to consolidate political control for white supremacist politicians. Over decades this led to Jim Crow laws, under which most Black Americans in the south were effectively disenfranchised despite constitutional rights. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 was supposed to end that iniquity. The US supreme court is turning the clock back; reviving a system where formal voting rights for minorities remain, but political power does not.
What is striking today is the speed of the reversal: following last week’s court decision to substantially weaken section 2 of the VRA – the main federal limitation on gerrymandering in many red states – Republicans are moving swiftly to redraw maps, placing previously protected Black congressional districts at risk. Moira Donegan argued in the Guardian last week that the court’s 6-3 decision not only reflected its rightwing bias but completed chief justice John Roberts’s long project of dismantling the VRA. It’s hard to disagree.
