Mike Johnson shrugs off Black voters' concerns about GOP gerrymandering: 'This brings back fairness'

Source: The Independent

Sunday 17 May 2026 11:52 EDT


House Speaker Mike Johnson said that attempts to redraw his home state of Louisiana’s congressional lines, which could give Republicans an advantage at the risk of depriving Black voters of representation, was about fairness.

In conversation with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, Johnson was asked what his message was to Black Americans after the Supreme Court delivered a severe blow to the Voting Rights Act.

“The Supreme Court issued a long-awaited opinion, and I think it was long overdue, and they stated the obvious, that drawing congressional lines must be fair,” Johnson said. “You cannot draw lines on the basis of race, and that's what was done in Louisiana.”

Last month, the Supreme Court handed down Louisiana v Callais, which called the state’s inclusion of a second majority-Black congressional district an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”. The ruling all but killed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law that prohibited laws that discriminate on the basis of race.

Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/mike-johnson-black-voters-gerrymandering-b2978177.html