Voting Rights Act Missing Key Protection Since 2013

Why It Matters

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) is, at this moment, a law with a significant piece missing. A Congressional Research Service report updated Wednesday, June 3 shows the preclearance mechanism that once required certain jurisdictions to get federal approval before changing voting rules has been inoperable since 2013, Congress has not replaced it, and a new Supreme Court decision handed down just weeks ago could force the issue again.

Some argue the VRA's documented success in expanding minority political participation proves its most demanding requirements are no longer necessary. Others contend that the same evidence proves the law is still essential, and that the gains are fragile without the statute's full protections in place. That debate has stalled in Congress for over a decade.

The Big Picture

The CRS report traces more than 60 years of voting rights legislation to explain how Congress arrived at the current impasse. The VRA was enacted in 1965 after nearly a century of systematic disenfranchisement, during which states used literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, voucher requirements, and outright intimidation to suppress Black voter registration across the South. Before the VRA, non-White voter registration in Mississippi stood at 6.7%. Within two years of enactment, it had risen to 59.8%. Similar gains occurred across Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and other covered states.

The law's architecture rested on two pillars. Section two created a nationwide prohibition on voting discrimination based on race, color, or language-minority status, enforceable through litigation. Section five, triggered by the coverage formula in Section 4(b), required certain jurisdictions with documented histories of discrimination to obtain federal preapproval before changing any voting law or procedure. Congress amended and reauthorized the VRA in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006, each time finding that continued federal oversight was necessary.

The 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder ended that architecture. The Court struck down the Section 4(b) coverage formula as unconstitutional, finding it relied on 1960s and 1970s voter participation data that no longer reflected current conditions. Without the formula, Section 5 preclearance has no mechanism to identify which jurisdictions it covers.

What remains is Section 2, which must be enforced after the fact through litigation, and the Section 203 language-minority provisions, which require bilingual election materials in covered jurisdictions and remain in effect until 2032. The Department of Justice administers and enforces both.

Then, on April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, interpreting Section 2 in the context of redistricting maps. The CRS report, updated just weeks after that ruling, flags it directly as a likely catalyst for new legislative activity and notes that recent Congresses have consistently considered VRA amendments in response to Supreme Court decisions, and that the post-Callais period could continue related policy debates.

The voting rights enforcement landscape has also been narrowed by the 2021 Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee ruling, which interpreted Section 2 more narrowly in the context of state election administration laws. Taken together, Shelby County, Brnovich, and now Callais have progressively reduced the practical scope of the VRA's remaining protections.

Political Stakes

For the Administration

The Department of Justice is the primary federal enforcer of the VRA. With preclearance gone and Section 2 as the main remaining tool, the administration's willingness to bring or support litigation is now the central variable in federal voting rights enforcement. The report notes that the preclearance system was specifically designed to prevent discriminatory voting changes before they took effect, because after-the-fact litigation was regarded as largely ineffective, requiring years rather than months to resolve. That slower mechanism is now the only one available.

For Congressional Republicans

Every major VRA reauthorization from 1965 through 2006 passed with substantial bipartisan margins. The 2006 reauthorization passed the Senate 98-0. But the post-Shelby County environment has produced no comparable consensus. Legislation to restore a preclearance formula, including H.R. 4 in the 116th and 117th Congresses and similar bills in the 118th and 119th Congresses, has not advanced beyond introduction in the Senate. The current Congress has H.R. 14 and S. 2523 pending, but neither has moved.

Some scholars cited in the report have described the VRA as a "superstatute" whose durability relied on consensus across all three branches of government that federal intervention was required to protect constitutional rights. That consensus, the report notes, "is disintegrating" in the view of some observers, particularly without an updated coverage formula. The post-Callais period, the report suggests, could intensify that debate.

For Democrats

The House passed voting-rights legislation twice, in the 116th and 117th Congresses, but both bills stalled in the Senate. The Freedom to Vote Act and the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act met the same fate. The report does not offer a solution, but its record of these failed efforts makes one thing clear: Congress has not been able to assemble the votes needed to pass major voting-rights reforms.

The Bottom Line

The preclearance mechanism that defined the VRA for nearly 50 years is gone, and nothing has replaced it. Section 2 litigation, the remaining nationwide enforcement tool, depends on an administration willing to bring cases and courts willing to sustain them. Both conditions are less certain than at any point in the VRA's history.

The CRS report documents a consistent historical pattern: every time the Supreme Court narrowed the VRA, Congress eventually responded with legislation to clarify or restore its protections. It does make clear that Congress has the historical record it needs to act, and that the choice not to act is itself a policy decision with consequences for civil rights voting policy that the VRA's own data makes measurable.

Access the Legis1 platform for comprehensive political news, data, and insights.