The battle for the Voting Rights Act may now be over but the battle over redistricting rages on.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled on Louisiana v. Callais, which not only requires Louisiana to redraw its congressional maps, but essentially killed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 law that prohibited voting practices or procedures that discriminated based on race. This also includes the process of drawing congressional maps.
Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump immediately called on Republican states to take advantage of the ruling. “We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” he said. “That is more important than administrative convenience. The byproduct is that the Republicans will receive more than 20 House Seats in the upcoming Midterms!”
But the next step of the redistricting wars was already underway. And of course, Trump fired the first round when he pushed for Republicans in Texas, North Carolina and Missouri to redraw their congressional maps. So far, only Indiana Republicans resisted the temptation to do.
The goal, of course, is to help Trump avoid the same fate of nearly every president in the last 20 years: losing the House of Representatives. Trump and the GOP clearly see the death of a landmark civil rights law as a chance for him to avoid impeachment and continue his agenda.
A slew of southern states with Republican governors announced they would redraw their congressional maps given that the Voting Rights Act had prohibited gerrymandering in a way that disenfranchises Black voters.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis got his desired redraw of is congressional map to create four new Republican-friendly districts hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, whom President Donald Trump criticized in the past, announced a new session to redraw its map.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster expressed openness to redrawing the Palmetto State’s congressional map. That would wipe out the district of Rep. James Clyburn, who earlier this year said he would seek re-election.
In response, Democrats have decided to “meet fire with fire,” as term-limited California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has said. California voters passed a ballot initiative to circumvent its nonpartisan redistricting commission and allow a one-time redraw of its map to create five new seats. And Virginia narrowly passed its ballot initiative to allow for ten districts that favor Democrats and only one Republican-leaning district.
And the courts still have a say in some red states.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said that while the state is prohibited by a court order from redrawing its map until 2030, she would call a special sessionthe the state would be prepared “prepared should the courts act quickly enough” to allow for its previously-drawn map to go into effect by the 2026 midterms.
“They didn't actually say that section two was unconstitutional, so it lends itself to a state by state determination,” Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama told The Independent shortly after the court made its decision. “Which means litigation.”
Indeed, shortly amid DeSantis’s push, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the “DeSantis Dummymander will not stand” and “See you in court.”
Still, Republicans have the advantage in the South.
Democrats have spent the past decade and a half trying to lead by example by banning gerrymandering and passing nonpartisan redistricting commissions in their states. But that means that their hands are tied and they have to ask their voters to do these temporary changes.
Even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a vanguard of the left, sounded outright apologetic when The Independent asked her about redistricting last week.
““And so if Republicans are going to redraw North Carolina, if they're going to redraw Texas, if they're going to redraw and gerrymander every one of their states, then unfortunately, we have to provide balance to that until we get to the day where we can all finally agree to put this behind us and pass nonpartisan gerrymandering federally,” she said.
By contrast, Republicans have done it without any compunction whatsoever. The lack of nonpartisan redistricting commissions in their states creates one less barrier for them. More than that, in Virginia, they used Democrats like Barack Obama’s own words against them to oppose the ballot initiative.
Even with these new seats, Republicans still are at a structural disadvantage. The economy is incredibly weak and voters simply don’t believe that Trump cares as much about that as he does his ballroom.
And, of course, Republicans could shoot themselves in the foot by stretching these districts too thin and making them much less safer for incumbents.
But, even if Democrats win a decisive victory in November, the lack of Black Democrats from the South in Congress will have reverberating consequences: namely, that one of the most disenfranchised grouos of people in the United States will lack a voice in Congress.
