WASHINGTON, D.C. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, has condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which strikes down Louisiana’s congressional map and eviscerates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
As Justice Kagan wrote in dissent, [this] decision renders Section 2 “all but a dead letter” in the vast majority of cases. While the majority claims to have preserved the law, in practice it has made partisan goals a wholesale defense for racism, handing state legislatures across the country a green light to dismantle fair districts and silence voters of color without meaningful federal court review.
LULAC stands in solidarity with the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the ACLU, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and our civil rights partners. As LDF President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson stated today, the Court has “reversed decades of progress toward a multiracial democracy in the name of partisan politics,” rendering protections that have served the country for more than 60 years “null and void.”
Statement from Roman Palomares, LULAC National President and Chairman of the Board:
“The Voting Rights Act is the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Movement. People fought, bled, and died for these protections, and today the Supreme Court has whisked those sacrifices away with the wave of a hand. For 60 years, the VRA has been the promise this country made to my generation and the generations that came before, that no matter the color of your skin or the language you speak at home, your vote counts the same as anyone else’s. This Court has broken that promise. LULAC has fought for the dignity and political voice of Latino Americans for 96 years, and we will fight for 96 more if we must. Democracy will not fall on our watch.”
Statement from Juan Proaño, LULAC Chief Executive Officer:
“Let us be clear about what happened today: six justices of the United States Supreme Court chose to strip Latino, Black, Native, and Asian American voters of the most powerful tool we had to defend ourselves against discrimination at the ballot box. They did it knowing exactly what comes next.
They did it knowing that Texas will move to crack the Rio Grande Valley. They did it knowing that Florida will move against Black and Puerto Rican communities. They did it knowing that cities and counties across this country will revert to the at-large schemes and racial gerrymanders that Section 2 was written to dismantle. This is not judicial restraint. This is not colorblindness. This is a deliberate decision to weaken the political power of 70 million Black and Latino eligible voters in a nation that grows more diverse every single day. Politicians should not choose their voters, voters should choose their politicians. Latinos are 14.7% of the American electorate. We are not going away, we are not going to be silenced, and we are not going to be written out of American democracy by judicial fiat. The Court has chosen its legacy today. We will choose ours.”
The Stakes for Latino and Minority Communities
The ruling imperils decades of progress for the 36.2 million Latino eligible voters and tens of millions of Black, Native, and Asian American voters who have relied on Section 2 to challenge discriminatory maps and election systems. Civil rights analysts project as many as 19 minority-held congressional seats are at risk of elimination, including roughly 11% of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and up to 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus. The greatest damage will be felt at the local level, where two-thirds of historic Section 2 litigation has occurred. Cities, counties, and school boards may now revert to the at-large schemes that Section 2 dismantled in jurisdictions from Pasadena, Texas to communities across the Deep South and Southwest.
In the words of Justice Thurgood Marshall, this is our democracy. We must make it, protect it, and pass it on.
