Voting Rights Act (Section 2)

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark federal law enacted to prohibit racial discrimination in voting. Section 2, codified at 52 U.S.C. section 10301, bars any voting practice that denies or abridges the right to vote on account of race, and it has been the principal tool for challenging electoral maps that dilute the voting strength of minority communities. For decades, courts assessed such claims under the framework set out in the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision in Thornburg v. Gingles. In Louisiana v. Callais (2026), the Supreme Court divided 6-3 in an opinion by Justice Alito that rewrote that framework to require proof of intentional racial discrimination, sharply raising the bar; the dissent warned the decision would render Section 2 largely a dead letter.