WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2026
In our view, part (b) is hard: Extemporaneous speech is hard.
It can be hard to speak clearly off the cuff—and it's never been harder than it currently is as people try to discuss the Supreme Court's recent Callais decision. Or when people try to explain the original holdings of the Voting Rights Act in general.
What did the VRA say in 1965, when it was enacted? What did it say as of 1982, when Congress added this language to the VRA's Section 2?
SECTION 2 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
42 U.S.C. § 1973. Denial or abridgement of right to vote on account of race or color through voting qualifications or prerequisites; establishment of violation.
a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b
(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
(b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.
Congress added part (b) in 1982. (We've provided italicization.) Good luck trying to understand or explain what that torrent of new language actually meant.
In fairness, the final line in part (b) was in fact fairly straightforward. Its words go exactly like this:
Nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.
According to that provision, "a protected class" (worrisome term) is allowed to have "members elected in numbers equal to their proportion of the population." There would certainly be nothing illegal or wrong about that!
(South Carolina seems to have achieved that goal in 2011-2012. It had two Black congressmen at that time—James Clyburn and Tim Scott.)
But that same passage plainly says that there is no right to such an outcome—no legal obligation. That seems fairly clear. But as for the language which precedes it, good luck untangling this:
A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a protected class in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to elect representatives of their choice.
Good luck with that highlighted construction. Meanwhile, if you can't see that that's a cloudy construction, that may be precisely the problem!
Last evening, Laura Coates went there again. On CNN's Laura Coates Live, she spoke with Scott Jennings about this very source of chaos and verbal confusion.
You can see the videotape of their exchange by clicking to this report from Mediaite. At one point, Coates made the statement shown below (we've corrected some errors from the transcript at Mediaite):
COATES (5/26/26): I was in the voting section of the Civil Rights Division. And I’ll tell you, as everyone realizes, that when you dilute the voting power of a particular population, the "One person, one vote" is essentially a myth.
If you tell them that they’re going to be separated and can never actually vote for a candidate that they’re choosing or have the opportunity to have that candidate elected, that’s problematic.
And before you give me that squint, don’t tell me that Republicans have fewer offices in New England or wherever. But the crux of the matter is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to make sure that voting strength was universal. And if you dilute that power through gerrymandering and separating districts, then you do undermine the ability to do that very thing.
Laura Coates is plainly a good, decent person. It isn't her fault that extemporaneous speech can be very hard. But that presentation is, in the end, clear as mud.
(Beyond that, we wish people would stop talking about "the Voting Rights Act of 1965" when it seems they're really referring to provisions which appeared in 1982. It wouldn't really help in the end, but it would at least suggest that people are trying to make accurate statements about this important topic.)
Explaining things is hard! Explaining the relevant section of the occasionally murky VRA can be extremely hard. For starters, here's an apparent conundrum:
Part (b) of Section 2 explicitly says that a "protected class" (will we ever be willing to abandon that term?) is not entitled to have members elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.
Part (b) explicitly says that! And yet, courts have routinely seemed to order states to create (absurdly gerrymandered) congressional districts in such a way as to pursue that very outcome!
It's been that way for decades now. On its face, that's what Louisiana was ordered to do on its way to the Callais decision.
Question:
If a state is one-third Black, was the state somehow obligated to create (gerrymandered) congressional districts which were one-third "majority Black?" It seemed that courts were saying they were—but is that what part (b) said?
For ourselves, we'd like to see Blue America "dare to struggle, dare to win." We think the notion that Black Americans must be treated as a "protected class" has possibly reached its sell-by date.
We know the complications of that concept lead some wavering Trump voters to hang onto their wings! But the conceptual confusion here is immense—and as the later Wittgenstein clumsily showed, when critters like us were sent to this earth, it seems clear that we weren't built for this particular type of work.
Untangling part (b) is a chore! We Blues don't seem to see it that way. A great deal remains to be said.
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