(The Center Square) – California lawmakers announced a new bill on Wednesday that would mimic the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the landmark civil rights law.
The California Voting Rights Act, the bill the Black Legislative Caucus announced in a press conference on Wednesday morning, would strengthen protections for voters and communities of color, legislators said.
“The [California Voting Rights Act] will ensure that the state has powerful voting rights protections to prevent against racist disenfranchisement and strengthen language and access so that diverse communities have an equal opportunity to fully participate in the electoral process,” David Trujillo, executive director of ACLU California Action, said at the press conference. “Now, California has a choice to make: We can cave to these attacks on our democracy, or we can fight to protect our democracy.”
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Louisiana vs. Callais that the State of Louisiana was not justified in creating a majority-minority congressional district. The conservative majority in the country’s highest court decided there was no compelling interest that justified the Pelican State’s use of race in creating the voting district in question, according to a summary of the case and previous reporting by The Center Square.
Critics of the Supreme Court’s decision said that the ruling effectively nullifies a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which stipulates that governments cannot deny a citizen the right to vote based on race or color, according to multiple news reports. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent that the majority ruling “eviscerates the law.”
Advocates and members of the California’s Black Legislative Caucus said that the Voting Rights Act of 1964 protected Black voters from measures meant to keep Black citizens from voting, like poll taxes, literacy tests and gerrymandered maps. The Voting Rights Act ended those measures, Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, said.
“Trump’s court decision in Louisiana vs. Callais gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a critical and sacred civil rights protection and permitted states to use partisan gerrymandering as a wholesale excuse to deny Black voters a voice in this government,” Bonta said during the press conference.
In response to a question from The Center Square, Trujillo said that California’s version of the Voting Rights Act is one step California lawmakers can take to extend protections to Black voters, despite the risk of lawsuits.
“It’s possible, but it’s an action we have to take,” Trujillo told The Center Square. “The state of California has strong protections against that, and we’ve seen state courts being able to uphold that.”
The Black Conservative Federation, a conservative organization that represents the interests of Black conservative voters, did not respond to The Center Square before press time. TPUSA Rise, which is connected to slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, did not respond to The Center Square before press time. A right-leaning research group, Pacific Research Institute, did not have anyone on staff who could speak to the issue. Republican lawmakers in California did not respond to The Center Square before press time.
