Statement on Louisiana v. Callais and the Dismantling of the Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Louisiana v. Callais. Six justices, all appointed by Republican presidents, rewrote the Voting Rights Act of 1965 without the authority to do so. Justice Samuel Alito eliminated our ability to prove voting discrimination by showing discriminatory effect.

For decades, civil rights organizations including the NAACP demonstrated harm through statistical analysis, election data, and expert testimony. Real evidence of real harm. Alito said that is no longer enough. Now we need smoking gun evidence of intentional discrimination. And he knows, because everyone who has ever litigated a civil rights case knows, that lawmakers do not confess. That is the point.

Congress already answered this question. In 1982, Congress explicitly amended the Voting Rights Act to make clear that discriminatory effect was sufficient. Alito looked at that amendment and rewrote the law anyway. Justice Kagan said it plainly in her dissent. The majority has rendered the Voting Rights Act all but a dead letter. She is right.

This did not happen overnight. Shelby County v. Holder gutted preclearance in 2013. Rucho v. Common Cause walked away from partisan gerrymandering. Students for Fair Admissions dismantled affirmative action. This is not a series of unrelated decisions. This is a strategy, decades in the making. Yesterday was not a gut punch. Yesterday was the plan arriving on schedule.

The fallout started within the hour. Florida advanced a new map eliminating four districts. Mississippi's governor promised a special session. Tennessee has its sights on Memphis. Alabama and Georgia are calculating their next move. They were ready because they knew this was coming.

The full consequences of this ruling are still being assessed. Anyone telling you they have complete clarity on what comes next is moving too fast. We are not moving too fast. We are moving with precision.

I have spent some time since this decision talking to attorneys, legal scholars, and people who do not share every position I hold. People not always aligned with the communities most directly impacted by a ruling like this one. And across every one of those conversations there is a shared recognition. Something is being systematically dismantled and it is wrong. The question is what we do about it.

Here is our path to protection:

At the federal level, we press without pause for passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We begin laying the groundwork for a constitutional amendment that affirmatively guarantees every American citizen the right to vote. That will not happen quickly. It starts now. And we have an honest conversation about Supreme Court reform, because a court that functions as a political instrument is not a court.

At the state level, Ohio needs a state voting rights act. California has one. New York. Washington. Virginia. Massachusetts. Minnesota. Colorado. New Jersey and Maryland just passed theirs. Ohio has no such protection. That changes, or the consequences of yesterday's ruling land here without a floor beneath us.

At the local level, we show up. Every redistricting hearing. Every emergency legislative session. Every room where maps are being drawn. We build a public record. We put every official on notice. Any attempt to eliminate majority Black districts or dilute the voting power of this community will be met with organized, legally grounded, sustained resistance.

And we vote. Like we have never voted before. Because the midterm cycle ahead is not a routine election. It is a referendum on whether this country intends to finish what this court has started.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was not handed to us. It was won by people who had been told, legally, repeatedly, and violently, that their votes did not count. They organized anyway. They marched anyway. They bled on bridges anyway. John Lewis bled on a bridge anyway. We honor that legacy by refusing to treat yesterday as a defeat.

It is not a defeat. It is a mandate.

Here in Columbus, the infrastructure of collective power is already being built. NAACP Columbus Branch 3177 is not reacting to yesterday. We were already moving. What this decision did was clarify the stakes for people who needed clarification.

The era of assuming federal law will protect us is over.

The era of protecting ourselves begins now.

Collective power does not ask to be recognized. It simply becomes undeniable.

Sean L. Walton, Jr. is President-Elect of NAACP Columbus Branch 3177, and a civil rights and personal injury attorney with Walton + Brown LLP. To join the movement, visit ColumbusForJustice.com.