Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Decision Could Continue to Define the Roberts Court

Photo via Claire Harbage, National Public Radio

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On Wednesday, October 15th, 2025, the United States Supreme Court held oral arguments for Louisiana v. Callais (2025), a pivotal case that will allow the current Supreme Court to detail how it balances prohibitions on racial gerrymandering with guarantees of equal representation. 

The case presented to the Supreme Court revolves around a challenge to Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, which was drawn as a result of the lawsuit Robinson v. Ardoin (2023), a case in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case argued that the United States House of Representatives’ redistricting map, drawn by the Louisiana legislature in 2022, violated Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (V.R.A.), preventing the government from placing barriers on individuals’ ability to vote on the basis of race or ethnicity.

While the case has not been decided yet, the Court’s conservative-leaning majority seemed inclined to declare Section 2 of the V.R.A. unconstitutional based on the questions they raised. The questions centered on whether there should be a limit on the amount of time that race is allowed to be used as a factor in drawing congressional maps, given that Section 2 was originally implemented to offset historical injustices and intentional barriers to voting. Taking issue with this, Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents all practices that dilute voting power based on race, regardless of their intentionality.

If the Court were to decide that Louisiana’s map was unconstitutional, the effects could be monumental. Republican-led state legislatures could redraw their congressional maps to remove approximately 12 congressional districts held by Democrats throughout the southern U.S. This decision would disenfranchise many minority voters and would likely overturn Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) at least in part, which affirmed that voting restrictions were illegal as long as they have a discriminatory effect, regardless of their purpose.

A ruling against the constitutionality of the V.R.A. would highlight the seemingly contradictory nature of the conservative-leaning majority on the Court. Since the confirmations of three associate justices during the first administration of United States President Donald Trump, the Court, led by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, has ruled more consistently in favor of conservative viewpoints, including on issues such as gun control and abortion.

Many of the more conservative members of the Court adhere to a form of “constitutional originalism,” a legal theory that attempts to interpret the Constitution as it would have been understood when it was written. This often involves a narrow reading of the Constitution, focusing solely on what is directly stated in the text, and disregarding any implications that could be inferred. 

This is evident in rulings such as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), where the majority argued that campaign contributions from corporations cannot be limited because the First Amendment of the Constitution does not distinguish between different forms of political speech, such as campaign donations and other types of public support.

While originalism can allow justices to argue in favor of rulings such as Citizens United and a potential nullification of aspects of the V.R.A., the Court has seen some of its lowest public approval ratings in over 30 years, likely in part because of the uneven application of its own philosophy. While the Court is designed to be more insulated from public opinion than other branches of government, public opinion can still serve as a factor in determining how impartially justices interpret the Constitution. 

This is evident in some of the justices’ statements and decisions that run contrary to stare decisis, or the Court’s established precedent. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association (2022), the Court overturned almost five decades of precedent in a 5-1-3 ruling, arguing Roe v. Wade (1973) was incorrect in stating the Constitution included the right to an abortion within the Fourteenth Amendment. The complete overturning of Roe was a ruling with which Chief Justice Roberts disagreed, and it shows divisions among the conservative-leaning majority on how to balance precedent and ideology.

The Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States (2024) is arguably one of the conservative-leaning majority’s strongest departures from originalism. The ruling asserts the President of the United States is immune from prosecution for all “official acts” included within their constitutional powers, but as Justice Sotomayor writes in her dissenting opinion, equality under the law and equality of the three branches of government were clear intentions of the Framers of the Constitution.

Over the past twenty years, the Roberts Court has been defined by a series of significant cases that have had a profound impact on national politics and have propelled the U.S. in a decidedly more conservative direction. At the same time, public confidence in the Court has dwindled, and the Court’s decision on Louisiana could represent another large shift in the legal underpinnings of the nation’s political system.

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This article was edited by Kaelen House.