ELECTION INDEPENDENCE
The Supreme Court’s Decision to Gut the VRA Means State-Level Protections are More Important Than Ever
For six decades, the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) stood as the cornerstone of American democracy — a hard-won protection guaranteeing that the color of a person’s skin could not determine their access to the ballot box or their ability to elect candidates who represent them. Yet, on April 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6–3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, effectively gutting Section 2 of the VRA — the law’s last remaining major enforcement mechanism. The decision made it dramatically harder for voters of color to challenge racial gerrymandering, requiring them to prove intentional discrimination, an extraordinarily high bar that will shield many racially discriminatory maps from legal challenge.
The ruling did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the latest chapter in a long story of the Supreme Court steadily dismantling the federal VRA. And yet, even as the federal framework has eroded, another encouraging trend has been unfolding across the country: states have been building their own voting rights protections to fill the gap left by the federal VRA.
The Impact of the Callais Decision
For nearly 50 years after its passing, the federal VRA remained a bedrock of civil rights protections. However, in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated one of the most important parts of the law, which required states with a history of discriminatory election practices to obtain approval (“preclearance” in the law) from the federal government before changing voting rules. Following this decision, in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court further weakened the federal VRA by significantly limiting the ability of voting rights advocates to challenge new restrictions in court. Up until the Callais decision, Section 2 — which prohibits voting laws that result in racial discrimination — became the primary vehicle through which advocates could fight racial gerrymanders and suppressive voting rules.
In Callais, Louisiana had drawn a new congressional map in 2024 that included two majority-Black districts, acting in response to a lower court ruling that the state’s previous map likely violated Section 2 by diluting Black voting power. After the new map passed, a group of “non-African American voters” sued, arguing the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court.
The Court’s decision established a new and far more demanding framework for Section 2 claims. Moving forward, plaintiffs will need to clear new evidentiary hurdles, and states can effectively defend any racial gerrymander by asserting that they were motivated by partisan politics rather than race — even though, particularly in the South, race and partisanship are deeply intertwined.
The consequences of the Court’s decision emerged almost immediately. Louisiana’s Governor declared an emergency and suspended the state’s May 16 primary election to allow the legislature to redraw the congressional map, even though more than 45,000 Louisiana voters had already cast early ballots. Beyond Louisiana, multiple states have already taken steps to redraw their maps to take advantage of the lack of federal protections. In Tennessee, lawmakers passed a new gerrymandered map just over a week after the decision, breaking up the state’s only majority Black district, and even removed a provision in state law requiring the government to alert voters about changes to their designated polling places when electoral lines are redrawn. The ripple effects of Callais are just beginning and will be felt in redistricting battles, election administration, and the representation of Black and Brown communities for years to come.
States Respond to Lack of Federal Protections
Even as the Supreme Court has continued to weaken the federal VRA, a parallel movement has been developing at the state level. A growing number of states have concluded that they cannot wait for Congress to act or for the federal judiciary to reverse course, and accordingly, have enacted their own voting rights laws.
These state voting rights acts mirror the protections of the federal VRA but often go further. Common features include:
- preclearance requirements that require local jurisdictions to submit voting changes for state review before implementation;
- vote dilution prohibitions that prevent at-large election systems and district maps from diminishing the political power of communities of color;
- private rights of action that allow individuals and organizations to bring claims in state court.
These state-level protections seek to mitigate the impact of court decisions that have weakened the federal VRA. They create new legal tools to fight voter suppression, create protections against voter intimidation and racial discrimination, and in some states, restore the kind of preclearance protection that was removed from the federal VRA by the Supreme Court in 2013.
The trend of states adopting these protections has accelerated. California enacted the first state voting rights act in 2002, and the next law was enacted in Illinois in 2011. Washington became the first state to adopt a law responding directly to the weakening of the federal VRA in 2018, and Oregon followed in 2019. Then, as the federal VRA continued to erode, the pace quickened: Virginia in 2021 (the first Southern state), New York in 2022, Connecticut in 2023, Minnesota in 2024, Colorado in 2025, and Maryland this year.
What Comes Next?
The movement towards enacting state voting rights acts will gain even more urgency in the aftermath of Callais. In 2026, at least six states — Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Vermont— introduced legislation to create state VRAs, and as of this writing, Vermont’s bill has passed the state House of Representatives. Virginia and Washington also passed legislation this year to improve their existing laws.
As of today, only 10 states have enacted their own voting rights acts, leaving the vast majority of Americans, particularly communities most affected by racial gerrymandering and vote dilution, without a state-level backstop against voting discrimination. This comes at a time when federal protections have been stripped away, and the Department of Justice has reversed course on voting rights enforcement. As a result, the weight of protecting voting rights for communities of color has shifted, almost entirely, to state legislatures and state courts.
This means that state-level protections are more critical than ever, as the responsibility is now left to the states to protect our most fundamental rights. Now is the time to urge legislators across the country to enact state voting rights acts to fill the gaps left by a lack of federal enforcement to combat discriminatory election and voting practices.
Regardless of race, background, language, disability, wealth, age, or zip code, state voting rights acts defend our right to vote and help ensure that every voice is heard, and every vote is counted equally.
