INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Supreme Court struck a severe blow to the Voting Rights Act from the Civil Rights Era by opening the doors for states to redraw voting districts in a way that weakens the collective voting power of minority groups.
In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that race alone is not a sufficient consideration when redrawing congressional maps. We look at how this impact Hoosiers so close to the midterm election.
Marjorie Hersey, IU Political Professor said, “The most efficient way to change the outcome is to change the rules and what the Supreme Court has done, what the conservative Supreme Court of the past 20 years has been doing is very slowly changing the Voting Rights Act to the point where it’s basically been gutted.”
This decision weakens a key part of the Voting Rights Act — Section 2 that civil rights-era law has protected minority voters for six decades. “And so there are a lot of Southern state legislatures that are gonna be just jumping as fast as they can to try to redraw their lines to maximize the chance that they reduce Black and Hispanic representation,” Hersey said.
In Indiana, lawmakers are holding off. Even before the Supreme Court decision, the Republican-led Senate voted against redrawing the state’s congressional map, despite pressure from President Trump.
Democratic State Rep. Earl Harris, Jr., (D) East Chicago said, “We, as elected, are supposed to be chosen. We, as elected, are not supposed to choose the people that vote for us. This is a bad move and headed in that direction and if this spread throughout the country, it really is a bad day for democracy.”
Harris said redistricting would split up minority voters. The Hamilton County Republican Chair, Mario Massillamany, disagrees. He claims it doesn’t dilute minority votes. He said it doesn’t take race into consideration.
“What they were looking at doing is lumping a specific race in a specific congressional district. And I think that’s unfair, because what that does is it gives different criteria when creating maps and looking at certain individuals depending on their race,” Massillamany said. “Now, every voter indifferent of their race will be treated equally.”
With midterm elections coming up in November, some states may move quickly to redraw their maps. Indiana’s lines will stay the same for now.
“We’ll hold because of our current makeup, but what does it mean down the line? What does it mean in the future?” Harris said.
