Ohio — 11th District

WASHINGTON - A landmark Supreme Court ruling issued Wednesday could reshape congressional maps across the country — including in Ohio — after the justices sharply limited the reach of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that has protected minority congressional districts for six decades.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines in Louisiana v. Callais, the court’s conservative majority struck down a Louisiana congressional map that had created a second majority-Black district, finding it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The ruling also rewrote the standard for challenging discriminatory maps under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a provision civil rights advocates have long relied on as the primary nationwide tool against racially discriminatory redistricting.

The consequences could reach well beyond Louisiana. University of Akron political scientist David Cohen called it “an absolute disaster for minority representation in the U.S. House.” Minority voters tend to overwhelmingly support Democrats.

“In an attempt to maintain their majority, scores of red states, including Ohio, will now look to carve up majority-minority congressional districts currently represented by Black or Hispanic lawmakers, spreading voters of color into different red districts thus muzzling their political voices,” Cohen predicted.

The Ohio constitution requires that districts must be compact, contiguous, roughly equal in population, and can’t split up counties more than a certain number of times.

Still, Cohen said, the decision would make two Ohio congressional districts likely targets of future redistricting efforts: Ohio’s 11th congressional district in the Cleveland area, which is represented by Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown, and its 3rd district in central Ohio, represented by Columbus Democrat Joyce Beatty.

Although neither is a majority Black district, both are highly urban districts with high concentrations of Black voters and are represented by Black representatives.

The decision is expected to accelerate an already unprecedented wave of mid-decade redistricting, in states including Texas, California, Virginia, Missouri, and North Carolina. in which the party that controls the state’s legislature sought to gain more congressional seats.

Ohio, too, approved new congressional boundaries in 2025, required under the state constitution. A map approved in 2022 expired after four years (instead of the usual 10 years) because it didn’t pass with bipartisan support. The new map gives Republicans an advantage in 12 of Ohio’s 15 U.S. House districts.

Participants on a post-ruling press call Wednesday organized by the ACLU and the Legal Defense Fund flagged Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and South Carolina as states where maps could be challenged or redrawn in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at University of California, Los Angeles, said in a blog post on the ruling that it is “hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics.”

“What this means for the 2026 elections is uncertain,” Hasen wrote. “It could affect places still redistricting for 2026, including most importantly Florida. It could also affect state and local elections, from school boards and city councils to state legislatures."

An NPR analysis found that at least 15 House districts currently represented by a Black member of Congress could be put at risk. Each of those districts has a sizable racial-minority population, is in a state where Republican lawmakers control redistricting and, for now at least, is likely protected by Section 2.

Republicans were pleased with the decision, with National Republican Congressional Committee chair Richard Hudson of North Carolina calling it “a victory for the Constitution and the principle that every American citizen is equal under the law.”

“The Supreme Court made clear that our elections should be decided by voters, not engineered through unconstitutional mandates,” Hudson’s statement continued. “For too long, activists have manipulated the redistricting process to achieve political outcomes, dividing Americans instead of bringing them together.”

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a Black Republican who is running for Florida governor, released a statement that called the ruling “a major win for the Constitution” that confirms race cannot be the main factor in drawing congressional maps.

“By striking down the forced racial gerrymander, the Court is ensuring voters are seen as individuals, not just demographic groups,” said Donalds, adding that “Democrats do not care about black representation, they only care about Democrat representation.”

Brown, though, took a different view.

The court ”just gutted key protections in the Voting Rights Act that prevented racial gerrymandering and safeguarded fair representation,” Brown said in a statement.

“This ruling turns back the clock, allowing states to again dilute the voices of Black Americans and attempt to wipe out Black and minority representation,” her statement continued. “This shameful ruling is an open invitation to southern states to whitewash Congress.”

She and U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes, an Akron Democrat, called on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which aims to restore and strengthen key protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that were weakened by Supreme Court decisions, particularly the elimination of the pre-clearance requirement that had required certain jurisdictions with histories of discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting laws.

“The Court has made it easier to silence Black voters and deny them the opportunity to elect representation that best represents their interests,” said a statement from Sykes. “Our democracy works best when every voice is heard.”

A statement from Beatty called the decision “devastating” and said it would weaken “the hard-fought Voting Rights Act of 1965—a law born to protect Black voters and ensure meaningful participation in our democracy."

What the court did

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that going forward, plaintiffs challenging a redistricting map under Section 2 must show that a state intentionally discriminated against a minority group — a significantly higher bar than the existing standard, which allowed plaintiffs to prevail by demonstrating that minority voters lacked an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Alito wrote, adding that lower courts had sometimes applied the law “in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote a dissent in the case, said that in “States still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting — minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process.”

The court did not strike down Section 2 entirely, but voting rights experts said the practical effect was nearly the same. On his blog, Hasen wrote “the opinion weakens application of the Voting Rights Act to make it a much weaker, and potentially toothless, law.”

The background

The case arose from Louisiana’s post-2020 redistricting fight. Black voters — who make up roughly one-third of Louisiana’s population — sued after the state drew a map with only one majority-Black district out of six. A federal court found the map likely violated Section 2 and ordered Louisiana to draw a new one. The 2024 map that resulted created a second majority-Black district, which helped elect Democrat Cleo Fields that November.

A group of voters who described themselves as “non-African American” then sued, arguing the new map was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Wednesday’s ruling sided with them, leaving the lower court’s order blocking the map in place.

The ruling is unlikely to result in immediate changes in Ohio, which holds its primary election Tuesday. The Ohio Redistricting Commission approved the state’s new map late last year, giving Republicans a demographic edge in 12 of the state’s 15 congressional districts. That map is currently slated to remain in place through 2031.

Ohio’s constitution requires the state’s legislature to pass congressional redistricting maps with a super-majority and bipartisan support. If that fails, the redistricting commission takes over.