The Supreme Court Just Opened the Door to a 2028 Nightmare |
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The other shoe of the ongoing mid-decade redistricting battle dropped on Wednesday. In a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court gutted yet another key element of the Voting Rights Act, this one protecting racial minorities’ equal ability to elect candidates of their choice. The decision gives red states, particularly in the South, carte blanche to gerrymander away previously protected congressional and state-level districts with significant, or majority, minority populations.
The political effect of the decision in Callais will be to set off a new wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering that is nearly unrestricted under federal law, while decimating the ranks of the Congressional Black Caucus. It may be too late in the 2026 cycle for this next round of cutthroat redistricting to play out in full before the midterms. But the redistricting scramble ahead of the 2028 election will make the battle we’ve seen thus far look like a skirmish.
“Democrats across the country, in any place where they have the opportunity to do so, need to be prepared to take action to combat what’s about to happen across the South,” John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, told me. “Republicans have consistently threatened and been very clear about their perspective of what this country should look like. And all states need to be ready for a call to action,” he said. “That’s what yesterday’s decision should mean to everybody.”
Estimates vary, but the GOP has the opportunity to target somewhere around a dozen predominantly Black or Hispanic districts in Southern states controlled by Republicans. (We’re not counting Florida, which already completed its latest gerrymander this week under the........