Justice Clarence Thomas on Thursday argued that the Voting Rights Act should be gutted in a blistering dissent over the Supreme Court’s ruling that Alabama’s redistricting efforts were discriminatory against Black voters, Business Insider reports.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the Court’s three liberal justices in a surprise 5-4 ruling that prevents the Voting Rights Act of 1965 from being gutted.
Thomas, who was among the four justices who opposed Thursday’s ruling, wrote in a 48-page dissent that the decision has turned Section 2, which bans race-based gerrymandering, into "nothing more than a racial entitlement to roughly proportional control of elective offices —limited only by feasibility — wherever different racial groups consistently prefer different candidates."
The Voting Rights Act, in Thomas’ view, doesn’t require states to "intentionally redraw its longstanding congressional districts so that black voters can control a number of seats roughly proportional to the black share of the State's population."
"If it did, the Constitution would not permit it," wrote Thomas, who has recently been embroiled in a scandal concerning his undisclosed links to a billionaire that involved luxury travel and gifts.
Business Insider’s Kelly McLaughlin writes that “More dramatically, Thomas said he would have ruled that the Voting Rights Act had no power at all to prevent state legislators from racially gerrymandering districts — grouping minority votes along racial lines to dilute their power.”
McLaughlin writes that “The gerrymandered maps were used in the 2022 election. Republicans won all six non-Black-majority congressional districts. The sole Black-majority district went to Democrats.”
Correction: This article originally stated that Clarence Thomas was the Supreme Court's only Black justice. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is Black, joined the Supreme Court in 2022.
