Law and Disorder
DUN DUN
*Author’s note: In observance of the May Day protests, I am writing all of this on Thursday but separating it into two missives and scheduling the second to be sent out tomorrow to keep either from getting too chonky. Solidarity forever.
The cruelest month is finally ending.
And yet… the cruelty shows no signs of abating.
Yesterday’s US Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais? Pretty cruel.
The Virginia Supreme Court possibly invalidating the ballots of over 1.6 million voters in the Commonwealth? That would be pretty cruel, too.
Let’s start with the big one, the Callais ruling.
A lot of really smart things have been written about this terrible ruling already, and I do recommend you read them. A few of my faves that aren’t behind paywalls:
But your time is precious, so here’s a quick-and-dirty version of what the case was and what it means.
First, it’s important to be clear-eyed about the fact that the Republican majority’s ruling in this case is the culmination of more than a decade of work by the Roberts Court to gut the Voting Rights Act, arguably one of the most important pieces of legislation of all time.*
No, I am not exaggerating.
Congress finally passed and LBJ signed the VRA in 1965 as a comprehensive means to undo the political impact of Jim Crow policies in the South and related discriminatory structures nationwide.
Functionally, the VRA was meant to basically force states to enact the 15th Amendment’s guarantee that the right to vote not be denied because of race.
And so, finally, a whole goddamn century after the end of the Civil War, a law was enacted that opened political opportunities for Black and brown communities to participate in all aspects of the political system on an equal basis. (If you’d like to dig into the VRA a little deeper, the Brennan Center has a good explainer here that manages to avoid a lot of legalese, iyi.)
The political system is more than voting, though – it includes redistricting, too.
The Callais case specifically involves the congressional maps the Louisiana legislature drew after the 2020 Census.
The first Louisiana map created just one (out of six) majority-minority district, despite the fact that about a third of the Pelican State’s population is Black.
Black voters sued, and the legislature was forced to draw a new map that created two minority-majority districts.
Heedless of the irony, a group of white voters (the lead plaintiff is a dude in his 60s who lives near Baton Rouge named Phillip Callais. He goes by Bert) then sued over the new map, decrying it as a racial gerrymander.
The Callais case specifically dealt with Section 2 of the VRA, which prohibits (…prohibited) voting practices or procedures that have the effect of discriminating on the basis of race and other characteristics.
Functionally, this acted as a ban on racial gerrymandering – drawing districts to minimize the political influence of voters of color (commonly referred to as “minority” voters, a term I strenuously dislike, but useful to note here because of “majority-minority districts,” a term often used in this context).
As the South became politically dominated by Republicans in recent decades, the majority-minority districts required by Section 2 of the VRA have often been the only seats in both these states’ legislatures and their congressional delegations represented by people of color.
On the congressional level, they’re often the only seats in those states that also elect Democrats.
Left to their own devices, GOP legislatures could “crack” areas with high populations of color and spread them out across the majority-white seats they drew, thus diluting the political power these groups could wield if drawn together into just a few districts (it doesn’t always seem like it, but a vote in the U.S. House is truly a powerful thing).
But Section 2, in practice, prevented this.
While the Callais ruling didn’t explicitly strike down Section 2, it created a new standard for applying it that effectively guts it and will functionally allow Republicans to crack Black and brown populations into small minorities of other districts.
Actual hard proof of intentional racial discrimination is now required to apply Section 2 to a legislative or congressional map.
Like an email between lawmakers saying, “Wow, I can’t wait to dilute these Black voters into a bunch of different districts so they have less power!” of a GRWM video of a legislator where he talks about how excited he is to discriminate against people of color while tying a windsor knot.
Anyway, combined with a 2019 SCOTUS ruling that ruled partisan gerrymandering totally constitutional, all gerrymandering is now okay!
Here’s why this is a gift to Donald Trump and Republicans writ large:
Eight states – all with legislatures totally controlled by Republicans – can now re-gerrymander their congressional (and state, but Trump DGAF about that, so it’s gonna be back-burnered) maps to eliminate their Black and Latino districts – most of which just happen to be the only districts in those states represented by Democrats. It’s possible for many of these states to only draw majority-white districts now.
Here’s a quick list of the states at issue (and the districts most at risk, as sussed out by the excellent folks at The Downballot):
Alabama (2, 7)
Florida (9)
Georgia (2, 13)
Louisiana (2, 6)
Mississippi (2)
South Carolina (6)
Tennessee (9)
Texas (16, 29)
That’s 12 congressional seats, y’all.
…and that could be the optimistic end of things; an analysis by Fair Fight Action and Black Voters matter finds that 19 congressional seats are at risk.
The only saving grace of the Callais ruling is that it came too late in the 2026 cycle for all of these GOP legislatures to redraw the maps for this fall, but some are already getting started.
Florida’s fresh gerrymander was already drawn to accommodate the likely outcome of Callais, which could net Republicans four seats in the Sunshine State this November.
Louisiana has “suspended” (wtf) its May 16 primary so lawmakers there have time to draw one or both of its Black members of Congress out of their seats.
Both Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn are pressuring the governor and legislative leaders in Tennessee to call a special session to crack the state’s majority-Black Memphis-area district.
Alabama’s governor is signaling that the state won’t redraw maps before the 2026 elections, and the primaries are already behind us in Mississippi, so those may be off the table for the year.
Georgia’s first-round primary is on May 19, so their governor may pull a Louisiana and “suspend” its elections, but there’s no indication as of this writing that’s in the works.
If Democrats do manage to flip the US House this fall, you bet your ass that every single state that’s able to will absolutely racially re-gerrymander their congressional maps ahead of the 2028 cycle.
But the thing about this that no one’s talking about (yet) that gives me agita is what this means further down the ballot.
Most legislatures in the South are pretty lopsidedly Republican already, but the ability to crack Black and brown populations and spread them across majority-white districts – whether it’s next year or in the 2030 round of redistricting – is going to diminish the political power of communities of color in these states to a level we haven’t seen since …
… well, since before the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the South …
The other big legal action in the redistricting world this week happened in Virginia, when the state Supreme Court heard arguments on the legality of the Commonwealth’s redistricting referendum.
The case before SCOVA turns on …well, a number of technicalities, but let me put one thing to bed before I start to dig into them.
The day after a majority of Virginians voted to approved the new districts, Republicans’ pet judge in Southwest Virginia issued a ruling that blocked election officials from certifying the results of the election.
Earlier this week, the Virginia Supreme Court declined to pause that ruling – but that’s all for now.
What does this mean for the fate of the new Virginia map? No one knows!
The case that really matters is the one SCOVA heard arguments on on Monday.
The underlying issue the court will rule on there is whether the Democratic majorities in Virginia’s legislature followed the rules (in this case, the state constitution) when it passed the amendment.
More on that tomorrow!
And I promise I’ll also come with some good news, as a treat.
*Unless you, like, hate civil rights and think that voters of color shouldn’t be allowed to have power equal to that of white people in elections. If that’s the case, though, you’re probably not reading this newsletter to begin with. Unless you’re… I dunno, a rage-reader? I hope not, though – anger is exhausting and you can use that energy to do something way more fun.