The Court Just Handed Politicians a New Tool to Pick Their Own Voters
The fastest way to win an election isn’t to convince more people. It’s to choose which people get to count. And on Wednesday, six justices on the Supreme Court handed state politicians a brand new pair of scissors.
In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court split six to three to strike down Louisiana’s congressional map, which had created a second majority Black district in a state that’s roughly one third Black. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, said the ruling marked the latest chapter in the Court’s complete demolition of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 of that law, she warned, is now “all but a dead letter.”
Strong words. Accurate ones too.
Here’s what changed. For four decades, voters of color who believed a redistricting map diluted their voice could challenge it under Section 2 by showing the map’s effect was discriminatory. Not anymore. Under the new standard, plaintiffs must prove a state legislature was actually trying to discriminate by race, rather than simply showing a plan produces discrimination in practice. Lawmakers know better than to put racism in the meeting minutes. So the proof bar just became a ceiling.
And there’s the loophole baked right in. States can now claim their maps are drawn for partisan advantage rather than racial disadvantage, a distinction that is often impossible to disprove in court. The Court has effectively said partisan gerrymandering is fine, racial gerrymandering is forbidden, and the difference between them is whatever the legislature claims at the press conference. In states where Black and Latino voters lean overwhelmingly Democratic, the two are functionally the same thing.
The numbers tell the story. Analysts at Issue One estimate 15 or more districts could be gerrymandered in favor of Republicans for 2028 and beyond. Newsweek reports the door is now open for as many as 19 Democratic held seats to flip by 2028. States with unified Republican control are already positioned to act, including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas. On the same day the Callais decision dropped, the Florida Legislature approved a new congressional map intended to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the state as part of the national redistricting battle.
For the 2026 midterms, the chaos will be limited. Filing deadlines have passed in most states. Primaries are weeks away. But 2028 is when the floor caves in. And the redraw that follows the 2030 census, the next once a decade reshuffling of every district in the country, will happen in a nation where Section 2 protections barely exist on paper.
We should be honest about what this means for us. If you live in a state where the legislature decides your community’s voice is inconvenient, you now have far fewer legal tools to push back. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the federal government’s promise that it would no longer let states draw lines designed to silence Black voters. That promise just got a lot quieter.
It also matters for trust in the system. We’re heading into a midterm cycle where confidence in elections is already thin, where we’re exhausted by inflation and overseas conflict, and where fewer of us believe our votes move the needle. A ruling that lets state legislators design their own electorate is not going to improve that mood.
The Court didn’t ban Section 2 outright. It did something cleverer. It left the words on the books and pulled out the wiring. The next move is ours. State legislative races, ballot measures on independent redistricting commissions, and federal voting rights legislation are no longer abstract policy debates. They’re the only working brakes left on a redistricting machine that just got a green light from the country’s highest court. Go beyond the headlines…
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