WASHINGTON — The long, often agonizing struggle for Black political clout in Washington faces a new, uncertain and potentially troublesome chapter.

Black political power in the nation’s capital is centered on the Congressional Black Caucus. In the U.S. House, the caucus has enough members to comprise roughly-one fourth of the votes needed to reach a 218-vote majority, including some of the most senior and influential Democrats in Congress. Their numbers and cohesion have been enough to push landmark legislation such as the Affordable Care Act across the line.

But the April 29 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais narrowing the scope of the federal Voting Rights Act, as well as this year’s aggressive Republican redrawing of congressional district lines in conservative states, is a serious threat to Black political momentum. Analysts see more than 20 caucus members possibly at risk of losing their seats.

“Not since Jim Crow have we seen this level of systematic disenfranchisement of Black voters,” Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clark, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

In May, the Congressional Black Caucus joined with the NAACP to demand that Black athletes withhold financial and athletic support from public universities in states where redrawing congressional lines has threatened to unseat Black lawmakers.

Among the schools that could be impacted are historic football powers Alabama and Georgia, as well as Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana.

Black progress and setbacks

Black progress in Congress was supposed to get rolling after the Civil War when voting rights were significantly strengthened and the first Black senator and House member began serving in 1870.

Then came the end of Reconstruction in 1877, the rise of the Jim Crow segregationist South, and the brutal erosion and in effect the denial of Black voting rights in the South. From 1881 until 1967, the U.S. Senate did not have a single Black member. The House saw a 28-year drought in the early 20th century.

The post-World War II civil rights movement led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a landmark achievement that truly marked the start of a new era for Black political representation — and influence.

Thirteen Black lawmakers created the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971. Today it has 60 members. 

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is the House minority leader, in line to become the first Black speaker if Democrats win control of the House in November.

Caucus members are the top Democrats on four of the House’s committees: Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Financial Services; Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., Homeland Security; Bobby Scott, D-Va., Education and the Workforce; and Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., Foreign Affairs.

A ‘new Jim Crow era’?

The clash over what constitutes fair representation has been raging since the country, now celebrating its 250th anniversary, was created.

The Louisiana v. Callais decision opens a new — or in some eyes, a recycled and disturbing — debate.

“The backward-looking U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana vs. Callais opens the door to a new Jim Crow era by drastically diluting the right of Black voters to choose lawmakers who represent their concerns,” said Karen Dolan, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal research organization.

She estimated that one-third of the Congressional Black Caucus seats could be at risk, as well as thousands of state and local elected officials over the next few years.

Conservatives offered a different take. Constitutional amendments adopted just after the Civil War, establishing voting rights among other things, “were forged at tremendous human cost to secure a constitutional order grounded in equality before the law—not racial classifications,” said Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy organization.

He said the court decision “restores that understanding and reaffirms that the Constitution does not permit sorting Americans by race in the exercise of political power.”

Why the Black Caucus matters

Since the Voting Rights Act and subsequent revisions that until recent years strengthened its provisions — and routinely won bipartisan support — the Black Caucus has acquired leverage from its numbers as well as its generally consistent unity on policy.

Its members, usually almost all Democrats, have for years supported an agenda grounded in civil and worker rights, education and health care.

The Affordable Care Act was the 2010 bill that overhauled the nation’s health care system, creating new help for people to buy insurance and adding strong consumer protections.

“Without representatives of Black voters from the South, there would be no ACA,” said Bishop William Barber II, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. The bill passed the House by seven votes. No Republicans voted for it.

The caucus has also been active in securing funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which the caucus says in its agenda statement “have always been agents of equity, access, and excellence in education – especially for students of color.”

Connected with the caucus is the nonprofit Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which provides scholarships, leadership training, research and other programs. Its annual legislative conference in Washington, scheduled this year for mid-September, is regarded as an important forum for Black policy debate and advocacy. It says its mission is to “advance the global Black community.”

Struggles and victories

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1870, bars federal or state denial or curbs on voting rights because of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  

But once Reconstruction effectively ended in 1877, in many instances so did federal protection for Black voting rights in the South.

“Once U.S. troops withdrew, the federal ability to protect minority voting rights in the South was substantially limited until Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act in 1965,” said a June report by the Congressional Research Service.

Black voting, particularly in the South, was severely curbed, as people in the community could be subject to nearly impossible-to-pass literacy tests, poll taxes, and outright intimidation. 

Democrats controlled much of the South after the Civil War, until civil rights laws eroded its grip starting in the mid-1960s.  “One-party control in many areas, even entire states, meant that the party often wielded at least as much power as the government itself. Even where voter protections were enshrined in law, they could be avoided,” CRS said.

“These and other voting barriers meant that, practically, African Americans remained disenfranchised throughout much of the South.”

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s spurred radical changes. In January 1964, the 24th Amendment was ratified, banning the poll tax or any other tax as a condition for voting.

In August 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which barred barriers to voting such as literacy tests.

It also established “preclearance,” which required the Justice Department to approve any changes in voting procedures in certain places with a history of racial discrimination. 

The act had “an immediate and substantial impact on political participation among African Americans,” CRS found.

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, president of the Joint Center on Political and Economic Studies, which studies Black issues, said that prior to the act, “Black political representation was not just limited — it was nearly nonexistent.”

The civil rights victories changed the political landscape dramatically.

“By dismantling formal barriers to voting, it opened the door to Black political participation and, over time, increased representation,” he said.

But in recent years conservatives gained more clout in courts, and in 2013, the Supreme Court virtually ended preclearance. 

In April, the Callais decision allowed an effective end to districts drawn largely to include more minority voters. The law, said Justice Samuel Alito, has been too often viewed by courts “in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

A cascade of redrawn seats

Many conservative states have moved quickly to draw new districts, districts where Black incumbents or candidates are likely to find it more difficult to win.

Without Voting Rights Act protection, “Republicans now have the ability to move forward with a nationwide scheme to rig congressional maps in their favor—to manufacture more districts for themselves by eliminating majority-Black districts, while stripping away the ability to challenge those racist, anti-Black maps in court,” said Black Caucus Chair Clark.

Louisiana redrew its districts. At the moment, it has four Republican and two Democratic congressmen. After redrawing one of the majority-Black districts, it’s likely to have five Republicans and one Democrat following this year’s election.

Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., a Black Caucus member whose New Orleans area district was retained, noted that about one-third of Louisiana’s population is Black.

“As a matter of fairness and representative democracy, African American voters should have a meaningful opportunity to elect candidates of their choosing,” he said in a statement. 

Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, the House speaker, had a different view.

“The court restored a simple but profound truth, yes, the Constitution protects every American equally, and that’s a very important concept for us to maintain,” he told reporters. 

“Democrats spent decades trying to engineer electoral maps that divided Americans, and this decision from the Supreme Court hopefully ends that terrible practice once and for all,” he said.

Other states moved fast to effect changes favorable to Republicans. Tennessee officials chopped up a predominantly Black district in the Memphis area. Florida went ahead with a new map that could give the GOP a net gain of four seats in that state.

In Alabama, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to use a map that would redraw and effectively eliminate one of the two majority-minority districts.

How much lost clout?

Judging how much the Black Caucus could shrink, if at all, is difficult because different House races are influenced by a variety of factors, many local.

All of this year’s redistricting efforts have resulted in two states with maps that could help Democrats, while eight new maps give more edges to Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

For Republicans, the center sees gains of up to four seats each in Florida and Texas, and one seat each in Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Alabama and Tennessee. Democrats stand to gain as many as five seats in California and one in Utah.

While all that gives Republicans an advantage, the analysis notes that “the House map is not red enough to protect Republicans from what appears to currently be a bad political environment. We continue to favor Democrats to flip the House in November.”

The House currently has 218 Republicans, 212 Democrats and one independent who usually sides with Republicans. There are four vacancies.

Beyond the voting rights debate, the independent analysts offer this reminder when handicapping upcoming elections: It hasn’t been unusual in recent midterm elections for voters to turn against the party in the White House.

In Trump’s first term, Democrats gained 40 seats in the midterm election. The Black Caucus gained nine new members.

This story was first published July 2, 2026 by States Newsroom.