California must shield voting rights before the Supreme Court limits them

By Matt Barreto, faculty director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, Special for CalMatters

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The affirmative right to vote is not listed anywhere in the Constitution. This omission led to states disenfranchising women and non-whites for the majority of our history.

After the inclusion of women in 1920, the most important democratic expansion was the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and amendments in 1975 and 1982 to ensure all Americans an equal right to vote.

In 2013 the Supreme Court gutted Section 4b of the Voting Rights Act, ending key protections. Then in 2021 it limited Section 2 of the act. Now in 2026 the court will decide Louisiana v. Callais, to determine if federal protections for majority-minority districts are allowed to continue.

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