Jackson protests as Supreme Court uses Louisiana gerrymandering ruling to instruct lower courts

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson protested the Supreme Court’s decision to use their recent ruling in a Louisiana gerrymandering case to instruct lower courts on how to define the Voting Rights Act, a move that could wipe out previous legal victories for voting rights groups.

The Court on Monday sent a Mississippi case back down to U.S. District Court “for further consideration” following their ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which rejected race-based gerrymandering.

“This case presents only the question of Section 2’s private enforceability, which our decision in Louisiana v. Callais … did not address,” Jackson dissented, referencing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. “Thus I see no basis for vacating the lower court’s judgment.”

The Supreme Court last month limited the scope of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which restricts how states draw districts affecting minority voters, in its ruling in the case of Louisiana v. Callais.

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Louisiana v. Callais centered on whether Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, which had added a second majority-Black district, amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Though the justices acknowledged that compliance with the Voting Rights Act can be considered by states as a compelling interest in redistricting, they said that it did not require Louisiana to add the creation of a second, majority Black district, siding with a lower court that had also blocked the state’s use of the map.

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The high court’s ruling in that case could trigger a new wave of legal challenges over congressional boundaries and make it harder for plaintiffs to challenge the maps in question, as it requires them to prove a racially discriminatory motive.

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.