"Here we are in this moment in the country's history and we have to deal with this again."

• The US Constitution and Judicial Restraint

"Judicial restraint is a legal philosophy where judges limit their power, deferring to legislative and executive branches by only striking down laws that clearly violate the Constitution. Grounded in the separation of powers, it emphasizes adhering to precedent (stare decisis), avoiding political questions, and deciding cases on narrow grounds to avoid "legislating from the bench". 

• • 1857  Dred Scott v Sandford

African Americans are not and can never be citizens of the United States. The ruling also declared unconstitutional the Missouri Compromise.

Considered by many legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court, was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution. Read more HERE.

• Civil War and the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, 15th)

• • 1873  The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36

The clause of the 14th Amendment that most explicitly empowers the federal courts to protect individual rights against state and local governments was effectively deleted from the Constitution. The Court’s holding that the 14th Amendment had nothing to say about the widespread, systematic and continued violation of the civil rights of free blacks made the horrors of Jim Crow possible, along with widespread oppression of white Unionists in the South and women and newly arrived immigrants throughout the country. Read more HERE.

• Civil Rights Movement and the Passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965)

• • Reagan and John Roberts  

"In 1982, when the Voting Rights Act was up for reauthorization, the Reagan Justice Department had a goal: preserve the VRA in name only, while rendering it unenforceable in practice. A young John Roberts was the architect of that campaign."

George W. Bush, in 2005, made Roberts the Chief Justice.  "As Chief Justice, Roberts has eviscerated voting rights protections time and time again, in keeping with an ideological belief that prohibitions on racial discrimination" are a form of racial discrimination themselves. (The Atlantic,  Nov 21, 2023)

• 1980  City of Mobile v Bolden 

Wiley L. Bolden and other residents of Mobile, Alabama brought a class action on behalf of all black citizens in Mobile. They argued that the practice of electing the City Commissioners at-large unfairly diluted the voting strength of black citizens. A district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Bolden.

The Court, however, "held that the Fifteenth Amendment did not entail "the right to have Negro candidates elected," and that only purposefully discriminatory denials of the freedom to vote on the basis of race demanded constitutional remedies."

More information HERE  and HERE.

• Most Recent 25-Year Renewal of the Voting Rights Act (2007)

Approval of the measure, on a 98-0 vote, came on the same day that President Bush made his first presidential visit to a convention of the NAACP, where he promised to sign the bill.  Most Republicans joined united Democrats, saying that while the VRA had prdoduced historic results, it was still warranted.

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• Election of Obama

  • Shelby v Holder (2013)

The decision dealt a significant blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Court struck down the law’s formula for determining which states and localities should be required to get federal approval for changes to voting policies to ensure that they were not racially discriminatory.

For lots of interesting information on the case from the Brennan Center click HERE.

• Election of Trump

  • Louisiana v Callais (2026)

The Court ruled that Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, which created a second majority-Black district to remedy racial vote dilution, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. 

"The Callais requirements have thus laid the groundwork for the largest reduction in minority representation since the era following Reconstruction. Under cover of “updat[ing]” and “realign[ing]” this greatest of statutes, ante, at 29, the majority makes a nullity of Section 2 and threatens a half-century’s worth of gains in voting equality."  

Excerpt from the dissent written by Kagan, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.

To read the entire dissent, click HERE.

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Click HERE to read what the Harvard Kennedy School has to say about "What Louisiana v Callais Means for the Voting Rights Act".

The immediate aftermath of the decision can be seen in the article HERE.