The Supreme Court's Trump majority did its job again and opened the door for more GOP gerrymanders this year and in the future, (primarily) at the expense of Black Democrats.
|
Listen To This Story
 |
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday made it easier for Republicans to gerrymander their states by weakening the provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that made race a key factor in drawing new voting maps.
With just over six months to go before the midterms, the decision could result in a new round of redistricting as the decision opens the door for GOP lawmakers in the South to make previously unconstitutional changes to majority-minority districts.
This will likely decrease the number of Black Democrats in Congress, which seems to be the whole point of the ruling by the super-partisan Supreme Court.
At the heart of the case is Louisiana’s congressional map, which was redrawn to include a second majority-minority district to be in compliance with the VRA. That was illegal, according to the right-wing justices who usually rubber stamp just about anything Donald Trump and Republicans want these days.
However, the court stopped short of outright striking down Section 2 of the VRA, which is supposed to prevent racial gerrymanders.
It might as well have, according to voting rights experts on Justice Elana Kagan, who wrote the dissent.
“The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave,” she wrote. “Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter. In the States where that law continues to matter—the States still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting — minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process.”
Southern states are expected to try just that, which could cost Democrats as many as a dozen seats.
For example, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) urged her state’s legislature to reconvene to dilute the Democrats’ only congressional district in the Volunteer State “to cement Donald Trump’s agenda and the Golden Age of America.”
As Kagan noted, Wednesday’s ruling marks the end of a long journey for the court’s right-wing majority, which, she stated, “had its sights set on the Voting Rights Act” for over a decade.
And, arguably, the court’s decisions, which have all but completely gutted the landmark law while also weakening campaign finance rules and other laws meant to make election fairer, have disproportionately favored Republicans.
This will be no different.
“Today’s VRA decision is intellectually dishonest and wrong,” said prominent voting rights lawyer Marc Elias. “The conservatives basically said: Black people can vote for their preferred candidates, as long as they prefer the right candidates — which will be Republicans.”
Congressional Democrats vowed to fight back.
“[President Donald] Trump, [Vice President JD] Vance, Republican Justices, & Republicans in Congress are undermining multiracial democracy because they fear it,” tweeted progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA). “They will not prevail.”
For now, however, they have.
