Will Supreme Court decision promote discrimination or color-blindness? Texans react
.jpg "A voter walks into the Como Community Center to cast her ballot on the first day of early voting in Tarrant County.")
Texas Democrats say the Supreme Court’s ruling this week regarding Louisiana’s congressional map strips protections of minority voters from discrimination.
Republicans say the decision was correct and that the government should be color-blind in how it treats all citizens.
In a 6-3 ruling, along partisan lines, the Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that the redrawing of Louisiana’s congressional map, which included a second majority-Black district, was “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.” The court did not explicitly overrule the Voting Rights Act, but effectively rolled back an interpretation that has protected minority voting power in redistricting.
“It makes proving racial discrimination in redistricting more incumbent on it being current or recent discrimination, and it makes historical discrimination a less important factor for the court,” said Sam Hayes, assistant professor of politics and policy at Simmons University in Boston.
Reactions to the decision were mixed across Texas.
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey posted a statement saying that the decision to gut a portion of the Voting Rights Act is “the most significant erosion of voting rights since Shelby County vs Holder in 2013.”
Shelby County vs Holder ruled that a formula in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain states with a history of discrimination to obtain “pre-clearance” before changing certain aspects of their electoral laws, was unconstitutional.
Texas House Minority Leader Rep. Gene Wu said in a statement, “The fight to stop Republican racial gerrymandering continues — in the courts, in Congress, which has the power to restore the rights that the Supreme Court took today, and at the ballot box where Texans will get the final word. We will keep fighting on all three fronts.”
Reyne Telles, executive director for Tarrant County Democratic Party, says he is worried that the decision will make it harder to stop unfair voting rules that will hurt minority voters.
“I think the Republicans are taking advantage of their position in power at this moment to make unfair maps,” Telles told the Star-Telegram. “The weapon and the target is Black and Latino communities, and I’m worried about the fact they may continue to take that avenue.”
Tarrant County Commissioner Matt Krause, a Republican said on X that the ruling is consequential for the future, “… SCOTUS got this decision 100% correct,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz was interviewed on FOX News and said the Supreme Court decision was correct.
“We should be colorblind,” Cruz said, referring to the government’s use of race in gerrymandering. “We should not discriminate in favor of or against any race.”
The Tarrant County GOP did not respond to a request for comment.
Sarah Chen, a senior supervising attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, says the ruling will result in fewer elected officials of color, with no way to protect minority voting power in Texas and across the country.
For Chen, the Supreme Court’s goal is to make a color-blind Constitution that doesn’t address systemic racism, which is not what the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are about. She says the bigger picture is that, without the Voting Rights Act, there needs to be a new, fair democracy to protect civil rights.
“I think we are seeing it be rolled back in terms of rights for women, rights for immigrants, rights for LGBTQ people. All of them are civil rights issues that will be rolled back if we do not live in a representative multiracial democracy,” Chen said. “And we will not have that post-Callais unless we fight for something to replace the Voting Rights Act.”
Eleanor Dearman contributed to this story.
