Following the SCOTUS decision in Louisiana v. Callais, the Equal Justice Society released the following statement:
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, invalidating Louisiana’s congressional map that gave Black voters fair representation, is a devastating blow to civil rights and democracy. As Justice Kagan noted in her historic dissent, the Court’s ruling is the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”
Congress enacted and later strengthened the Voting Rights Act to protect Black voters and other groups from racially discriminatory voting practices. In gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and by making the standard for challenging these exclusionary practices nearly impossible to meet, the Supreme Court imperils the voting rights of Black, Latinx, Asian and Native people across the country and dishonors all those who sacrificed to win and protect the most fundamental of our rights.
We look to the appellants in this case–the Black voters and civic organizations who succeeded in getting the state of Louisiana to draw a congressional map that added a second Black majority district (out of six total) to make it a fair metric giving equal voting access to Black voters who comprised one third of the population.
Equal Justice Society stands with these patriots and the majority of the people in this country who remain committed to the principles and promise of the Voting Rights Act, which was established to reverse and repair centuries of denial and repression of Black people’s right to vote. As monumental a regression as this is in the centuries old struggle for freedom and the fair vote, we have been here before and know that we have no choice but to regather and press onward.
As the Robinson appellants vowed in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, “we will not stop in our march, nor spare any resource in our fight to make sure that the sun will eventually rise on an America with free and fair elections for all of its people.”
In Solidarity,
Equal Justice Society