From The Washington Post:
Black Congress members focus on ‘massive voter turnout’ after gutting of civil rights law
The Supreme Court’s latest blow to the Voting Rights Act could cost 19 Black lawmakers their seats over the next few years, the Congressional Black Caucus says, but the group is fighting back.
Fields, 63, quietly packed up his things and walked from the committee room to an elevator. The whole ride down to his office, he felt anxious and empty. How bad would it be? Would the court’s decision apply narrowly to Louisiana, or would it weaken Black representation across the country?
The elevator stopped, and Fields stepped out to meet the lawyers waiting in his office.
It took more than a century for Black Americans to get the right to vote. It took decades for them to more freely practice that right and run for political office. And it has taken just a few years for the Supreme Court to strip away many of the protections enabling that progress. The latest blow could lead to the departures of as many as 19 Black Congress members over the next few years, according to the Congressional Black Caucus.
The Voting Rights Act, forced through Congress by a determined and impatient President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 after Bloody Sundayshocked the country that March, granted nationwide protections for voting rights and propelled a generation of Black political leaders. In 2013, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. began weakening it. First, the court gutted a provision requiring states with a history of racial discrimination to receive federal approval before making changes to voting laws. In 2019, the justices ruled federal courts couldn’t intervene to stop politicians from drawing electoral districts to preserve or expand their party’s power. Two years later, the court made it harder for people to challenge state laws with racially discriminatory effects.
Then last month, in its landmark Louisiana v. Callais decision, the court opened the door for states to redraw congressional maps in ways that dilute the political power of minority voters. States had already been competing to redraw districts to favor their party. This new ruling cleared the way, gutting one of the last federal protections for minority representation.
Congress began this session with the greatest number of Black lawmakers in U.S. history: 62 in the House and five in the Senate, a proportion nearly equal to Black Americans’ share of the general population.
Then last month, in its landmark Louisiana v. Callais decision, the court opened the door for states to redraw congressional maps in ways that dilute the political power of minority voters. States had already been competing to redraw districts to favor their party. This new ruling cleared the way, gutting one of the last federal protections for minority representation.
Congress began this session with the greatest number of Black lawmakers in U.S. history: 62 in the House and five in the Senate, a proportion nearly equal to Black Americans’ share of the general population.
Some of them could now lose their seats. Those most vulnerable are Democrats and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, an influential bloc on Capitol Hill. This account of how Black Congress members are responding to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act — and are preparing to fight back — is based on interviews with 15 lawmakers.
When Fields was first elected in 1992 representing a newly created, majority-Black district, he joined a cohort of Black lawmakers empowered by the Voting Rights Act. Black representation in Congressjumped from 27 members to 40 that session, because of court-mandated redistricting in the South tied to the Voting Rights Act. But Fields’ time in Congress didn’t last long.
Four years later, a federal court decided Fields’s district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Under the new map, his home was no longer in the district he represented.
In 2024, nearly three decades later, Fields returned to Congress. Federal courts had ordered Louisiana to once again redraw its congressional map under the Voting Rights Act. The new map created a second majority-Black district, which Fields won.
Now, his district could be redrawn again, potentially leading to the end of his time in Congress — for the second time.
“It’s been a constant roller coaster,” Fields said in a recent interview. “I’ve been here before. The only difference is we never had a president who was so adamant about the elimination of majority-minority districts.”
When the founders drafted the Constitution, they left it up to states to decide who was eligible to vote. For the most part, that meant only White men who owned property. After the Civil War, Black men secured the right to vote through the 15th Amendment, so former Confederate states focused their energy on stopping their vote in other ways. States like Mississippi and Alabama rolled out literacy tests, poll taxes and other restrictions, often with support from the Supreme Court.
That began to change in the 1960s. The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, cracked down on how districts were designed. The 24th Amendment banned poll taxes for federal elections. And the Voting Rights Act in 1965 enshrined protections for minorities’ voting rights and representation. Congress strengthened the legislation several times since the law’s initial passage, most recently in 2006 under President George W. Bush.
To the longtime members of the Congressional Black Caucus now at risk of losing their seats, the latest court decision and new maps in Southern states feel like a regression to pre-civil rights philosophy grounded in racism.
“The Roberts court seems to be hell-bent on restoring Jim Crow,” said Rep. James E. Clyburn, South Carolina’s only Democratic Congress member, who could lose his seat under a newly proposed map.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Missouri) now also faces a more difficult path under a new map. “We could never have imagined that in 2026, that there would be an attempt to erase all of the years of progress we’ve made since the time they did the Voting Rights Act.”
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was founded in 1971 by 13 members when very few minorities held such powerful positions. The caucus is officially nonpartisan and has had a handful of Republican members in the past, but its current membership is all Democrats. In the caucus’ worst-case scenario, losing a third of its members could weaken the group’s influence on Capitol Hill. At the same time, the midterm elections could make House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) the first Black speaker of the House. If Democrats win the majority, Jeffries would preside over a Congress that is whiter and elected by a more gerrymandered and disenfranchised population than any in recent memory.
Since its inception, the CBC has called attention to issues that disproportionately affect African Americans, like racial health disparities and voting rights.
“A weakened CBC is bad for the entire country,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Florida).
None of the five Black Republicans in Congress are in the caucus. All four in the House are leaving. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Florida), who is running for governor, has said the Voting Rights Act is no longer necessary and praised the court’s recent decision. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), who will leave the House at the end of the year after losing the Republican Senate primary, also sided with the court.
“I am somebody who is a minority, a Black guy, that represents a White-majority district, so the idea of trying to ... redistrict based on race is kind of just ridiculous to me,” Hunt said.
CBC members argue their primary concern is not the number of Black representatives on Capitol Hill but that Black voters have fair representation.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in April, the caucus’s meetings have been occupied with brainstorming on how to move forward. Jeffries met with Democrats on the issue in recent weeks. The CBC’s group chat has been “very busy,” said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware), who was the first woman and Black person to represent Delaware in both the House and Senate. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, who could lose his seat under a new map and is the only Democrat from Mississippi in Congress, said he’s never seen this level of interest and enthusiasm on voting rights in his more than three decades in Congress.
“The cabdriver is talking about it, the retiree is talking about it. People call in the office every day, waiting to be told what they can do,” Thompson said. “It’s a racist effort to deny Black people just and fair representation.”
The caucus is focused most on voter registration and mobilization, said Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-New York), the caucus’s chair. The group is coordinating with civil rights and grassroots organizations across the country in the run-up to the midterm elections. On a recent weekend, several members attended a rally in Montgomery, Alabama, harking back to famous civil rights marches of the past.
“We need a massive voter turnout. This is not a time to yield to voter suppression,” Clarke said. “We’re geared up to do this work.”
On Capitol Hill, the caucus is flexing its muscles. Last week, the lawmakers formed a united front opposing a bill on college athletics and forced Republican leadership to cancel plans for a vote on it. Members are weighing other legislative maneuvers as a form of protest.
“This is an unprecedented moment featuring an unprecedented attack on Black political representation, and therefore it requires an unprecedented response,” Jeffries said at a recent news conference outside the Capitol.
And the group is making plans to claw back rights in coming years if Democrats retake Congress and the White House in 2028. They are looking at updating and reviving the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The proposed legislation, which would restore many provisions protecting Black voters, was blocked in 2022 by Republicans and two Democratic senators.
Also on the table as a way to strengthen voting rights is expanding the Supreme Court or implementing term limits, Clarke and Jeffries have said.
And the group is making plans to claw back rights in coming years if Democrats retake Congress and the White House in 2028. They are looking at updating and reviving the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The proposed legislation, which would restore many provisions protecting Black voters, was blocked in 2022 by Republicans and two Democratic senators.
Also on the table as a way to strengthen voting rights is expanding the Supreme Court or implementing term limits, Clarke and Jeffries have said.
But for now, many lawmakers in the caucus are in limbo. Some, like Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), have announced they will not run again, realizing their chances are slim under redrawn maps. Others are waiting for legal battles to wrap up before deciding.
In Louisiana, where Republicans are working on an updated map, Fields could be in his final few months in Congress. Despite his uncertainty, he talked about this time as a fleeting moment in America’s history. The Supreme Court, he noted, once ruled that segregation was legal. He has been telling folks in his district that the most important way to fight back against gerrymandered districts and restrictive voting laws is by voting anyway.
“What would’ve happened if everybody just said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna stop, there’s just no hope?’” Fields asked. “Many of the freedoms that we enjoy today would have not come into fruition. And sometimes you have to refight battles, you know?”
