The Supreme Court Left No Doubt: It Will Gut the Voting Rights Act - Elie Mystal

[In It to Win It]

The Nation (Archived)

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, a case about whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prevents white people from overrepresenting themselves in Congress. Oral arguments can sometimes sound like the justices are deliberating great and technical points of law, but the outcome in this case was decided long before the lawyers arrived at the courthouse. The six Republican justices are going to declare the Voting Rights Act inert and allow the dilution of Black voting rights through racist gerrymandering. Oral arguments were largely an exercise of the Republicans justifying their racist positions.

At issue were maps for congressional districts in Louisiana. The state has six congressional districts. After the 2020 Census, the state produced a map where five of those districts were majority white. But Louisiana is only 56 percent white, and 31 percent Black. Simple math should tell you that there should be at least two districts in Louisiana that are majority-minority.

That said, if math is not your thing (and it never is for Republicans when the math doesn’t result in their supremacy over others), then the Voting Rights Act and the 15th Amendment should be. Section 2 of the VRA allows the federal courts to intervene when a state discriminates against the voting rights of Black people. Louisiana was sued by the NAACP after the 2020 census, and a court ordered the state to redraw its maps, producing two majority-minority districts.

A group of white plaintiffs in Louisiana then countersued the state over its new, less racist maps, arguing (wait for it) that this application of the VRA violated their constitutional rights. The white litigants were arguing that their overrepresentation in Congress is permissible and that attempts to use the VRA to stop them is the real constitutional violation.

Here's my full breakdown of yesterday's voting rights case, where the Supreme Court will likely say that overrepresntation of whites in Congress is constitutionally mandated.

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— ElieNYC (@elienyc.bsky.social) 2025-10-16T15:44:13.825Z

[Walleye]

1. I have never understood why they are constantly drawing redistricting maps. It's disorienting.

I think from now on our response should be something like “draw the lines however you want will kick your ass anyway”

[fujiyamasan]

5. The big shift is redistricting in non census years

Gerrymandering is nothing new. The term itself goes back to 1812, but republicans have found another way to blatantly rig the system.

Sure, both parties have gerrymandered districts to favor them, but in recent years democratic states have been trying to make things relatively fair by appointing independent commissions. I see no similar push from republican states. Only the opposite, in fact.

[Walleye]

7. Yes, that's it. Redistricting after a census makes sense.

The Republicans count on the fact that their voters are so dumb, and they’re just getting dumber, that they don’t understand what a census is or when it is supposed to happen. At this point, I don’t think many Republicans really care that much about the rules they just care about winning. They don’t know what they’re winning and losing, but they want to look like they’re winning. but what can you expect from a guy at the top who cheats at golf?

[Ocelot II]

2. I guess we're going to have to do the civil rights movement all over again.

Go back to about 1960 and start over.

[Clouds Passing]

3. I'm sorry for blatant cursing but fuck the 6.

[Buckeyeblue]

4. If the SC says you can't make race based decisions for distracting

But a state breaks up a district that is predominantly African American, would that state be making race based decisions on creating new districts?

Where is the baseline to determine if race is a factor? Is it when the decision is announced? Because if it is, both creating a new district that increases a certain races population or creating a new district that decreases a certain races population would equally be in violation.

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. All the gerrymandering in the world can't counter the coming demographic shift

Whites will become the minority in the USA by the 2030’s, and there is nothing they can do about it.