Conservatives’ redistricting wars just hit a new low.
The Supreme Court this week (besides siding with an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center) struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, thus hollowing out the last of the 1965 Voting Rights Act—and more or less vanishing any protections we had left to prevent racial gerrymandering. It did, however, make clear that any party-based redistricting remains safe! Great.
“This is a dark day in our democracy,” the NAACP’s Kristen Clarke—who helped lead the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department under the Biden administration, that is, before it was bludgeoned apart by anti-woke crusader Harmeet Dhillon—told Politico of the decision. “There’s some small protections with respect to language access, an important prohibition on voter intimidation, but very little remains.”
The decision also rewrites the VRA’s Section 2, which has long protected minority voters from redistricting efforts by prohibiting any such practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or party membership. Now, it will be nearly impossible to prove intentional racial discrimination, and states accused of racial gerrymandering can argue that they maps were redrawn to increase their party advantage.
Speaking to Reuters, Rick Hansen, who teaches law at UCLA, called the move a “wrecking ball.” “There are still parts of the VRA that are operative, but the two main pillars are now virtually dead letters.” (The other was struck down in 2013.)
The Louisiana v. Callais ruling also overturns another decision the justices made in 2023, regarding a case in Alabama, in which they ruled in favor of a redistricting that favored Black voters. It’s through this case that Fields’ district became the second majority Black district in Louisiana—a state in which about a third of the people are Black.
When asked by reporters after the ruling whether states should redraw their maps, Trump said, “I would.” Though—again—this is the same man who wants to enshrine voter suppression so he can “guarantee the midterms.”
While it’s not clear what exact impact this will have on the midterms, the lack of protection could now leave vulnerable at least 15 House districts across the U.S.—and tee up the biggest decline in the number of Black representatives across Congress.
