Warnock: Supreme Court dealt 'devastating blow' to democracy with Voting Rights Act ruling
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/03/warnock-supreme-court-voting-rights-ruling-00904047
Warnock: Supreme Court dealt 'devastating blow' to democracy with Voting Rights Act ruling
The Georgia Democrat said he hopes for Congress to reinstate the law’s original pre-clearance requirements for certain states.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) holds a press conference on Capitol Hill about the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act decision on Wednesday. | Rod Lamkey Jr./AP
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) warned Sunday that the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act last week will have “a devastating impact” on democracy, arguing that the court further inflamed a tense redistricting arms race across the country.
The court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday to significantly narrow a key provision of the 1965 law, deciding that there must be evidence or at least “a strong inference” of discriminatory intent in the drawing of legislative lines to prove that a map unfairly discriminates against minority voters.
“What happened this week is nothing less than a massive and devastating blow — not only to our democracy, but particularly to people of color in the South,” Warnock said during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “This question about intent is on its head misleading, and it ignores our history.”
He noted that the racial turnout gap has widened, particularly in states previously covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, since the Supreme Court struck down the law’s requirement that certain states with a history of discriminatory voting practices seek “preclearance” in the 2013 ruling Shelby County v. Holder.
“Since they removed the protections of Section 5, states that used to play old games, they’re playing new games,” he told host Margaret Brennan. “They’re 21st-century Jim Crow tactics in new clothes: moving voter polls, closing polls in Black and brown communities … purging people — people literally showing up and not knowing that their names have been purged from the rolls. And the data shows that this disproportionately impacts Black and brown citizens.”
Warnock told Brennan he hopes for Congress to reinstate the VRA’s original pre-clearance requirement for some Southern states.
Watch: The Conversation
It’s not yet clear how the ruling will impact this year’s midterm elections, with primary voting already underway in several states, but Republicans are already calling for Southern states to redraw their congressional maps as soon as possible. Louisiana’s governor issued an emergency order to halt primary voting on House races.
Warnock — one of five Black senators — said he supports the redistricting efforts undertaken by Democrats across the country in response to the GOP’s attempts to redraw congressional maps in Texas and other states ahead of the upcoming midterms elections, but he warned that “the court sadly poured fuel on this redistricting arms race.”
“I actually hate partisan gerrymandering. I don’t like gerrymandering, but we could not unilaterally disarm,” Warnock said. “[Trump] called Texas and said, literally, ‘Give me six more seats.’ So California and other states had to respond, Virginia in kind.”
Warnock introduced legislation alongside Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Angus King (I-Maine) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to ban partisan gerrymandering last year. The legislation faces slim chances of success in the Senate amid Republican opposition to a partisan gerrymandering ban.
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