Supreme Court weighs in on redistricting. Will it affect the national battle?
Bart JansenWASHINGTON – The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Louisiana’s latest congressional map, which critics said would “eviscerate” the Voting Rights Act, is unlikely to play much of a role in the 2026 midterm elections but could remove the justices from future redistricting fights, experts say.
The court ruled that Louisiana relied too heavily on race in drawing its maps for seats in the House in 2022. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the 6-3 majority, called the map an “unconstitutional gerrymander” that violated the rights of non-Black voters who challenged it.
The decision had been hotly anticipated because it comes amid the biggest flurry of redistricting since the 1880s between the customary 10-year Census population counts. The remapping fights pitted Republicans against Democrats for control of the House that is narrowly led by the GOP. But most states have already held primaries for 2026 so the high court's decision is likely to be felt more in the 2028 presidential contest or in 2031, after the next Census.
“I think this is them green-lighting anything that the states are going to do,” said Wilfred Codrington, a professor at Cardozo School of Law. “The Supreme Court is trying to get out of redistricting gambits entirely.”
Supreme Court divides sharply over racial discrimination
The Supreme Court previously ruled in 2019 that states could redraw maps for partisan advantage but not for racial reasons. Section Two of the 1965 Voting Rights Act aimed to prevent mapmakers from weakening the voting power of racial minorities by either packing them into one district or spreading them out across too many districts to have an impact.
Rick Hasen, a law professor at University of California Los Angeles, said lawmakers understood in crafting the voting law that discrimination was rarely done in the open but was hidden “in technical rules, fine print, and lines quietly drawn on a map.” He said the ruling could accelerate “an already relentless arms race” in redrawing districts where “politicians choose their voters instead of the other way around.”
“The stakes go beyond a single map or a single election cycle,” Hasen said in his blog Feb. 18. “Minority representation in Congress hangs in the balance, as does the basic premise that voters should be able to hold their representatives accountable.”
Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University, said the case revived a debate raging for decades about how to avoid discriminating against voters.
“What Alito and the rest of the conservatives would say is is we allow politics but we specifically aren’t allowing racial gerrymandering because what you’re claiming is a remedy for racial gerrymandering is itself racial gerrymandering,” Dorf told USA TODAY. “This is just a recapitulation of the debate we’ve been having about affirmative action for the last 50 years.”
Dorf said he wasn't aware of other pending legal challenges to congressional maps based on race.
“None of the other ones I’m aware of involve the deliberate creation of majority-minority districts,” he said.
Alito said the focus of the Voting Rights Act must be to enforce the prohibition against intentional racial discrimination under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution.
The amendment approved in 1870 after the Civil War aimed to protect the voting rights of Blacks by prohibiting a denial of the right to vote “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”
Alito said wielding the Voting Rights Act to "outlaw a map solely because it fails to provide a sufficient number of majority-minority districts would create a right that the amendment does not protect.”
Justice Elena Kagan wrote in opposition that the decision would allow states to systematically dilute the power of minority voters.
"Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic,” Kagan wrote. "But in fact, those 'updates' eviscerate the law, so that it will not remedy even the classic example of vote dilution given above.”
Critics of the ruling say it will 'muzzle' minority voters
The slow-motion impact did nothing to soften criticism of the decision.
The case challenged Louisiana’s congressional map, which included two majority-Black districts out of six in a state where about one-third of the population is Black. Non-Black voters had argued that the seats were unconstitutionally drawn for racial reasons. The court has held seats can be drawn to favor one party or the other, but not generally for racial reasons.
"Today's decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities − so long as they do it under the guise of 'partisanship' rather than explicit 'racial bias,'" former President Barack Obama said.
Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, called the decision “a devastating blow” and “a license for corrupt politicians who want to rig the entire system.”
Issue One, an advocacy group tracking redistricting nationwide, said changing maps for 2026 could be difficult because many states have already held primaries and legal challenges would place significant obstacles before the general election. But maps could be changed for the 2028 election and beyond.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling makes it easier for politicians to muzzle the voices of voters of color and redraw maps that protect themselves instead of reflecting voters’ choices,” said Michael McNulty, policy director for Issue One. “When incumbents can cherry-pick their voters, the public’s voice gets weaker."
Trump set off redistricting battle for control of House
Redistricting became a wide-ranging, expensive fight in 2026 because President Donald Trump encouraged states led by fellow Republicans to redraw their maps to hold on to the slim House majority. The House has 217 Republicans, 212 Democrats and one independent who used to belong to the GOP. Five vacancies were held by three Democrats and two Republicans.
Trump said he loved hearing about the court's decision and looked forward to reading it. The president said he would still encourage Republican-led states to redraw their maps.
“I would,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I mean, it depends. Some states don’t need to redraw and some do.”
Nationwide redistricting battles could result in a draw
All the redistricting could result in a draw this year.
Texas began the stampede by drawing its map to create five more Republican-majority seats among its 38-member delegation. California responded by creating five more Democratic seats in its 52-member delegation.
Virginia voters just approved redistricting that aims to add four Democratic seats within its 11-member delegation. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special legislative session aiming to add four GOP seats in the 28-member delegation.
In Florida, the seat viewed as most vulnerable to gerrymandering doesn’t change in the proposed map.
In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves called last week for a special legislative session to be held three weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision. But a new map could apply to 2028 and beyond.
“It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps,” Reeves said on social media before the decision was handed down.
Missouri faces a legal battle over a referendum to redraw one key district even before weighing changes under the Supreme Court’s decision.
“The decision may or may not have a major, immediate impact on 2026, but its ripple effects will be felt more deeply in subsequent elections,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia.
States could still try to redraw maps knowing the Supreme Court won't intervene, expert says
Codrington, the Cardozo law professor, said other state attempts to redraw their maps will depend on the legislative and political calendars.
"Some will," he said. "It depends how far they are into their legislative calendar. Most are pretty late. I think it's going to be strategic which ones want to push the bounds."
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall called the decision a “watershed moment” to prevent states from using race to draw voting districts. Alabama's primary is May 19 with runoffs June 16.
“We will act as quickly as possible to apply this ruling to Alabama’s redistricting efforts and ensure that our congressional maps reflect the will of the people, not a racial quota system the Constitution forbids,” Marshall said.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, called on her state’s legislature to redraw its maps to eliminate the only Democratic seat, in Memphis, out of nine in the delegation.
Approaching primaries could discourage new maps for this year
Two states have fast-approaching primary dates. If the states changed the maps between the primaries and general elections, they could get snarled in legal challenges.
In Georgia, the option for redistricting is small because primary voting began April 27. Louisiana has a primary May 16, with early voting starting May 2.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said the Supreme Court had reached the "obvious result" in the case.
"We'll see what effect it has," Johnson told reporters. "We have, as you know, a primary coming up in about two weeks. So we'll see if the state legislature deems it appropriate to go in and draw new maps."