SCOTUS Gifts GOP a Fighting Chance to Hold the House
INSIDE: Janet Mills ... Jim Comey ... Donald Trump Jr.
A Whole New Battleground
The Roberts Court’s decision to effectively neuter the Voting Rights Act gives Republicans new life in their bid to hold on to their fragile House majority in 2026.
Consider just a few of the developments in the 24 hours since the decision in Louisiana v. Callais was handed down:
Louisiana: Gov. Jeff Landry (R) plans to suspend next month’s primary elections so state lawmakers can pass a new congressional map that eliminates one or both of the state’s majority-Black districts.
Florida: The GOP-controlled legislature passed its already-planned new congressional district map that could net Republicans four House seats.
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina: Top GOP candidates, elected officials and party chairs “called for special legislative sessions to dismantle minority-majority districts and create more aggressive gerrymanders benefitting their party,” Politico reports.
The upshot already is that Republicans have regained the lead in the mid-decade redistricting battle, seizing it back only days after Democrats had edged ahead.
The GOP advantage is small, but the already-narrow divide in the House makes any changes to the national map potentially decisive in either direction. Even if only a handful of Southern states seize on the Supreme Court decision, the gains could be enough to shift the map further in the GOP’s favor, all else being equal. (Conversely, it’s also true that these marginal shifts can be rendered largely meaningless if Democrats win in November in a wave election that washes out any structural GOP gains.)
Much of the analysis yesterday accurately noted how tight election calendars in many states may prevent the GOP from taking full advantage of an electoral map unencumbered by the Voting Rights Act. But it’s also true that it’s generally easier to redistrict in red states than in blue ones. With the the GOP’s firm control of many statehouses, its top-down hierarchical structure, and its culture of rewarding impunity, it is not just better positioned to capitalize on the current moment, it has little to lose.
Against this backdrop stands one Donald J. Trump, whose entire political existence, financial fortunes, and fractured psychology are dependent on holding onto the House. Why wouldn’t Republicans do everything in their power to push the envelope as far as they can between now and November? It’s how they got to this point. It’s what they do. Why would they stop now?
2028 and Beyond
A couple of additional points about the on-the-ground impact of the Roberts Court’s decision:
GOP’s Structural Advantage Grows
Even if the timeframe is too crunched for Republicans to maximize the effect of the Supreme Court ruling in time for the 2026 elections, the impact on the 2028 congressional district map is going to be enormous. A political playing field that already tilts structurally in favor of Republicans (thanks to the Senate, Electoral College, and partisan gerrymandering) will be a dramatically steeper climb for Democrats.
“We’re very likely to see the biggest drop in minority representation of the modern era — maybe even bigger than the drop we saw in the end of Reconstruction,” Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos told the WaPo.
(Yes, Republicans risk diluting their districts by eliminating majority-minority districts, but this is a manageable risk that frankly is often overstated. Over the long term, it might yield median candidates in red districts who are slightly less to the right, but in most cases the overall electoral advantage still goes to the GOP.)
It’s Not Just the House
The impact of the Roberts Court’s decision is far-reaching in state and local maps, too: legislatures, city councils, judicial districts, etc. Election law expert Richard Hasen calls it the “bleaching” of American politics, a whitening of elected officeholders at every level of government.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) had already called a special legislative session to address the state’s judicial maps, and now the state will get one of the first bites next month at the apple offered by the six-judge conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
With local elected offices serving as a points of entry for higher office, eliminating minority representation there snuffs out political careers before they can even begin, creating an additional structural impediment to would-be candidates of color at all levels of government.
Quote of the Day
“If you tell me I have to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, I can’t do nothing about that.”—Rep. Cleo Fields (D-LA), reacting to the Roberts Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act
A Sampling of the Legal Reax
Law professor Richard Hasen: “Wednesday’s 6–3 party-line decision in Louisiana v. Callais will go down in history as one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century.”
TPM’s Kate Riga: “The conservative justices know that Callais makes Section 2 cases virtually impossible to bring, that it’ll have the same effect as their previous deteriorations of the VRA. They know that they’re making minority voters vulnerable to being redistricted or restricted out of electoral power — and they also know that most of those minority voters vote Democrat.”
Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill: “[I]t is a mistake to consider today’s decision just a blow for the political rights of racial minorities. Today’s decision strikes a blow at the fragile infrastructure of our democracy. It casts aside the precious and noble actions undertaken by countless generations of activists, lawyers, and legislators, who worked to bring this country closer to becoming a true multi-racial democracy. It rides roughshod over the will of Congress. In its place, the Court leaves a bare-fisted zero-sum game of partisan politics and an open door to the return of full-on racial exclusion in political representation. So long as it’s dressed up as partisan gerrymandering or incumbency protection, it’s all good.”
Thread of the Day
Maine Senate: Janet Mills Suspends Campaign
Citing insufficient financial resources, Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) has suspended her Senate campaign.
Fallout From SPLC Indictment
Fidelity and Vanguard have cut off the Southern Poverty Law Center from receiving charitable donations through their donor-advised funds as a result of the bogus retributive indictment of the civil rights organization.
Jim Comey Allowed to Surrender
While an arrest warrant was issued in North Carolina for former FBI Director James Comey after his new retributive indictment by the Trump DOJ, he was allowed to make his first appearance in his home district of Virginia rather than face the spectacle of an arrest.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick rejected prosecutors’ request to impose conditions on Comey’s release pending trial. “I don’t think conditions of release are necessary,” the judge said. “They weren’t necessary the last time, and I don’t see why they’d be necessary this time.”
Judge Gets Serious About Trump’s Bogus Settlement With the IRS
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami, on her own initiative, appointed distinguished outside counsel to serve as friends of the court in helping her assess whether the pending settlement of Donald Trump’s $10 billion claim against the IRS.
The move comes after Williams expressed skepticism last week that Trump and the IRS were truly adverse to each other, given the president’s embrace of the unitary executive theory. Without truly adverse parties, the court would lack jurisdiction since there would no controversy for it to resolve.
Williams ordered six attorneys from three firms, including former Obama-era Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., to “assist the Court in identifying the applicable law governing an analysis of this issue.” Their legal memo is due May 21.
What Really Happened With the Broadview 6?
The Trump DOJ dropped felony charges in the Broadview 6 case and will only proceed with misdemeanor charges against the ICE protestors arising from the October incident.
The key point: The DOJ moved to drop the most serious charges on the same day it was supposed to bring grand jury transcripts to court on order of U.S. District Judge April Perry. Making the felony case go away deprives defense counsel of access to the transcripts since the misdemeanor charges aren’t dependent on a grand jury indictment.
Failson Fails Upward
Amazon, which owns The Apprentice back catalog, is considering rebooting the Trump reality TV show with Donald Trump Jr. as the host.
If the Day’s News Wasn’t Bad Enough …
WaPo: “Surging concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere, caused largely by burning fossil fuels, have produced potent changes in the way plants grow — from increasing their sugar content to depleting essential nutrients like zinc. Experts fear the degradation of Earth’s food supply will cause an epidemic of hidden hunger, in which even people who consume enough calories won’t get the nutrients they need to thrive.”
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I am reminded of the semi-humorous summation of all Russian history: “And then things got worse.” Looks like it applies here in America now.
This decision will only strengthen Democratic resolve in Blue states to double down on redistricting to purge GOPer Congressional seats under the now Court-approved "partisan advantage" formula, despite the presence of non-partisan redistricting commissions. I've seen potential redistricting maps that could cut the GOPer theoretical gains to 2-4 seats max, and if indeed an anti-trump "Blue wave" instantiates a huge Dem sweep, we would still take the House, but perhaps at a slightly lower majority than pre-*Callais* might have predicted.
It's not over yet, folks, as the Democrats have been gaming out just this sort of scenario when *Callais* was first argued, and the outcome was all but decided back then.
"Darkest before the dawn", and all that.