Supreme Court Attack on Voting Rights

May 4, 2026

The Supreme Court issued a ruling that further weakens the Voting Rights Act. The ruling is going to lead to more gerrymandering of Congressional districts and will make it harder for any black person to get elected to Congress. From 1901 until 1965, the year the Voting Rights Act was passed, at any one time there were never more than 2 black representatives in Congress. Today there are 67 black representatives.

But it wasn’t the Voting Rights Act itself that changed the situation. The Voting Rights Act came about as a result of the massive mobilization and protests of the black population during a civil rights movement that started shortly after World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s, many protests were organized against the racist “Jim Crow” laws in the South. These laws, accompanied by the threats and violence from the KKK and racist authorities, meant that very few black people in the South were able to vote.

Despite the violence used against them, the protesters, year after year, continued to confront the police, the local authorities and the racists. By the mid-1960s, there were rebellions breaking out in the streets of major cities, North and South. In the face of rebellions that could have threatened to bring down the whole capitalist system, the federal government, under the Democrats, wanted to cool things down. Congress passed some “Civil Rights” laws. When he signed the Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon Johnson, who was a known racist, had the nerve to say, “We Shall Overcome.”

Johnson and other politicians tried to claim credit for the gains that the black population had won through their own struggles—struggles which brought down many of the “Jim Crow” laws and had at least pushed back the open racism of the system. Politicians, like Johnson, tried to convince people to now put their faith in this system, its government and its laws.

But racism has always been part of the capitalist system in this country and that capitalist system remained in place. As the rebellions and struggles for civil rights died down, the things that had been gained were taken away, bit by bit. The Civil Rights Act has already been weakened several times in previous court rulings.

But even when the Civil Rights Act had been in full effect, there never has been any real democracy for the working class, black and white. Starting after the American Revolution, the right to vote was only given to white men with some wealth. Slaves had to win their freedom during the Civil War and then the right to vote during Reconstruction and then again during the civil rights movement. Women didn’t win the right to vote until 1920.

Even with the supposed right to vote, there is no real democracy if the outcome of which class is going to run things is predetermined. That’s how the U.S. Constitution was set up. It mandated two senators to be elected from every state as a way to take voting power away from the working class in the largest cities. The Electoral College was set up for the same reason, and to ensure that the ruling class had the ability to overrule the results of any presidential election.

Both Republicans and Democrats have always manipulated voting districts to their advantage, and today both parties are engaged in a frenzy of gerrymandering which has nothing to do with representing the will of the voters.

For over 150 years, the Republicans and Democrats have taken turns running the government on behalf of the capitalist class. And to ensure that they are the only two parties, there is a “winner takes all” system making it very difficult for any third-party candidate to get elected.

Both parties tell the working class that we live in a democracy where your votes count. But where is this democracy? Certainly not here under capitalism.