The Supreme Court of the United States, with a conservative majority, annulled the electoral map of the state of Louisiana on Wednesday, April 29. This is a far-reaching decision for the representation of minorities in the national Congress, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics.
First modification: 04/29/2026 - 23:48
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By a vote of six to three, conservative versus progressive justices, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that a landmark law guaranteeing electoral representation for minorities, the Voting Rights Act, did not require Louisiana to create a majority-Black second district.
Consequently, the electoral map of this southern state "is an unconstitutional redistribution," said conservative Justice Samuel Alito in the ruling written on behalf of the majority.
The decision of this Wednesday, April 29, represents a setback for the Democrats, who have been in a dispute with the Republicans for several months over the electoral redistribution of several states, before the crucial midterm elections in November.
"Today's Supreme Court decision dismantles the Voting Rights Act and turns back the clock on the founding promise of equality and fairness in our electoral systems (...) It is outrageous. But it is not a surprise," said former presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
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President Donald Trump's Republican Party, on the other hand, is strengthened in the long term.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, maintained that the Supreme Court had reached the "obvious result" in the case.
"We'll see what effect it has," Johnson told reporters. "As you know, we have a primary election in about two weeks. So we'll see if the state legislature sees fit to redraw the voting districts."
For progressive Justice Elena Kagan, "the court's decision will set back the fundamental right to racial equality" in elections, "which Congress had granted" with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
For about ten years, the conservative majority of the highest court in the country largely emptied this key law, adopted in the midst of the civil rights movement to prevent the former segregationist states of the South from violating the right to vote of African-Americans.
A "devastating" blow for Latinos
Various Latino groups condemned the ruling and lamented that it could silence voters in the Hispanic community.
"Today's decision is a devastating blow to black and Latino communities and to the fundamental promise of American democracy," the president of the organization Voto Latino, María Teresa Kumar, said in a statement.
"This ruling makes it significantly more difficult to protect African American voters from racial discrimination and allows the dilution of representation through partisan gerrymandering of electoral districts, depriving black and Latino communities of their valuable opportunity to elect the candidates of their choice," he added.
Read alsoUS Supreme Court limits electoral redistribution intended to favor minorities
With AFP, EFE and Reuters
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