The Supreme Court just wrecked the Voting Rights Act. Now what?
What it all means and what comes next
This is a breaking news edition of Progress Report.
I was ready for this Supreme Court decision. Let’s hope Democrats planned, too. Here’s what it means and what comes next.
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The Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act on Wednesday, handing down a decision that could fundamentally change who controls power in the United States for decades to come.
In a 6-3 ruling authored by ultra-conservative Justice Samuel Alito, the court rejected a Louisiana Congressional map that deliberately drew a second Black-majority district. While not technically fully destroying the Voting Rights Act, the decision called the map an illegal racial gerrymander.
This sets a new precedent, lifting a ban on splitting up members of racial and language minority groups to prevent them from having significant say over their representatives (a tactic known as “cracking and packing.”). In a searing dissent, liberal Justice Elana Kagan said that it will now enable states to “without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”
Since the VRA’s passage in 1965, states and municipalities have been compelled to draw districts that provide opportunities for minority voters to choose representatives that reflect their community.
That will no longer be the case; instead, the Supreme Court has created a veneer of “race neutrality,” part of an ongoing conservative project to redefine the idea of consideration for minorities into a form of discrimination against majority populations; courts have similarly weakened rules meant to separate church and state, casting Christians as discriminated against when the government has prevented prayer in schools or funding for religious organizations, for example. It is also at the core of the right’s war on DEI, which it has framed as a sort of reverse-racism.
This decision overturns not only the original Voting Rights Act, but an amendment passed by Congress in response to a 1982 decision in City of Mobile v. Bolden. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that discriminatory intent was required to prove vote dilution, and in response, Congress changed the law so that it only required discriminatory results to prove illegal dilution.
Now what?
Well, first, we remember that Democrats could have fortified the Voting Rights Act and avoided this whole problem when they had full control of government back in 2021-22. Former Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s refusal to move on the filibuster were most directly responsible for this failure, but plenty of other lawmakers only said they’d vote to change the racist old procedural rule because they knew that it would not pass.
This Supreme Court was clearly eyeing a final finishing blow to the VRA when Democrats were in power, and instead of providing the most basic protections for the constituents who make up their base, they decided to stand behind a tool best known for being used to prevent civil rights laws from being passed.
With that out of the way, we can consider the immediate and long-term electoral and legal consequences, which will be seismic.
Research by Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matters Fund found that Republicans could realistically redraw and flip up to 19 Congressional districts currently designed to empower minority communities. On the state level, up to 191 Democratic-held seats could be redrawn to be safe Republican seats.
On the national level, some of this has already happened in Florida, where the legislature just passed a map that deliberately ignored the VRA’s Section 2, anticipating this decision.
Given the timing of the decision, it’s more likely that massive redistricting will take place in 2028.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves this week called for a special session of the legislature to redraw the state’s map, which will now be unencumbered by any hint of fairness. The state’s one minority-led district is now in danger, though according to the voting rights group Issue One, the fact that Mississippi already held primaries in March will make change this year will be difficult to defend.
Similarly, Georgia’s early primary voting began this week, which will make further gerrymandering difficult this year (though don’t put it past them to try). Louisiana will also likely have trouble drawing a map that completely eliminates Black representation, at least this year, because the state’s primary takes place on May 2nd.
All of this adds even more urgency to flipping Congress and winning as many state legislature as possible. In 2010, Republicans took over swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, allowing them to create gerrymanders that are still giving the party disproportionate representation. Democrats were able to claw back majorities for a time in Michigan and Minnesota, and pass independent redistricting amendments in several states, but that will no longer be enough; so long as this new ruling stands, they will have to get aggressive in amending the process to allow them to redraw every state that they control.
This is why I started FlipSeats.org, which breaks down state legislative races and contains a growing repository of information about flippable seats in states where Democrats can either win majorities or break supermajorities. Once again taking trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota, flipping Wisconsin and Arizona, breaking supermajorities in Kansas and North Carolina — all of these things are possible, and they just got a whole lot more urgent.
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Outrageous.