What Sam Alito Has Wrought on the Map of U.S. Politics
INSIDE: Bill Lee ... Kay Ivey ... James Comey
A Complete Remapping
The map of American politics is about to change more dramatically than at any time since Reconstruction.
This week’s Supreme Court’s decision, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, has unleashed a re-gerrymandering of the House that will eventually extend to state and local political districts across the country.
With the two major political parties are still assessing what’s in their partisan interests to attempt to do and with years of legislative and legal battles still to come, it’s too early to map out the exact shape and form all the changes will take.
For our purposes, it makes sense to put the gerrymandering-on-steroids into two buckets: (i) what will happen between now and the 2026 midterms in November; and (ii) what will happen in the long term after 2026.
The Rush to Act Now
In the wake of Alito’s opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, Republican electeds have adopted the rhetorical posture of declaring all minority-majority districts unconstitutional, which lets them take the position that the midterm election cannot legally be run on unconstitutional maps. That throws the door wide open to making immediate, and perhaps even retroactive, changes to congressional district maps.
Among the key developments since yesterday:
Louisiana: With early voting set to begin tomorrow, the Republican governor declared an emergency and postponed the primary elections for the U.S. House (and only those primaries; the other primary elections will proceed as scheduled). That will give Louisiana, which was a party to the case in which the Supreme Court neutered the Voting Rights Act, time to pass new congressional district maps that eliminate one or both of the state’s majority-Black districts.
Tennessee: President Trump began jawboning Gov. Bill Lee (R) into eliminating the state’s sole majority-Black district, held by white Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen in Memphis. Trump announced, perhaps self-servingly, that Lee had told him “he would work hard to correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee…This should give us one extra seat.”
Alabama: The state rushed back to the Supreme Court, where its congressional district map is already being litigated, seeking expedited treatment of its case, which has already had a long and winding road to get to this point. Two majority-Black districts are at stake there. Gov. Kay Ivey (R) had said Wednesday that she would not ask the legislature to redraw the state’s map, but that was before yesterday’s move in court.
Georgia: This morning, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said he won’t cancel the May 19 primary but signaled he may call the legislature back at some point to redraw the state’s congressional map for 2028, but not for 2026.
Beyond 2026
The political landscape is poised to be reworked, especially in the South, as Nate Cohen mapped out in a extensive analysis of what extreme gerrymandering in the post-Louisiana v. Callais world might look like in medium term:
As Greg Sargent reports, the Supreme Court decision raises the stakes on state legislative races this year. The party that controls statehouses will have an outsize advantage in redrawing election maps for 2028. One analysis from the voting rights group Fair Fight Action gives a wide range of 10-22 seats that Democrats could pick up for 2028 with aggressive redistricting in blue states, depending on how Democrats fare in statehouse elections, Sargent notes.
An additional wrinkle for Democrats is the tension that aggressive redistricting in blue states will create with its minority constituencies because it will hasten the loss of minority representation in Congress, as election law expert Richard Hasen points out:
Some Democrats may say this “cracking” of minority districts benefits all Democrats, including minority voters, because electing more Democrats gives Democrats more power to help minority voters and others. But Democrats who represent fewer minorities are less likely to champion the interests of minority communities than minority-preferred candidates. And the pressure that these minority-preferred candidates can bring to bear in Congress (such as through the Congressional Black Caucus) is crucial to encouraging the Democratic Party to be responsive to the needs of minority voters.
RIP Voting Rights Act
A sampling of well-informed reaction to and analysis of Louisiana v. Callais:
Hasen: “In the end, Alito is afraid to stand up and say what his opinions necessarily imply: that Congress cannot do anything to protect minority voting rights short of banning intentional discrimination despite the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee, despite the 15th Amendment’s ban on race discrimination in voting, and despite the fact that both amendments explicitly give Congress the power to enforce the measures by ‘appropriate legislation.’”
Law professor Atiba Ellis: “I think it highly ironic that under the guise of a colorblind Constitution communities of color in a diversifying America could lose the lion’s share of their voice in government.”
Public policy professor Don Moynihan: “The VRA was crowning achievement of the Civil Rights movement, the product of a civil war, constitutional amendments, and intense political and social battles. Its intent was clear. And it was swept away, bit by bit, by a court whose majority was nominated by a President who lost the popular vote. …”
The Retribution: Comey Edition
The Trump DOJ has revived its previous failed investigation of Comey involving Columbia law professor Daniel Richman, but instead of making it another false statement to Congress case they’re treating it as a leaked classified information case, Bloomberg reports.
It’s not entirely clear where the investigation is centered. Bloomberg says it’s in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Comey lives, but that the case could be brought in New York, where Richman live. In contrast, the NYT reports:
Details are scant. But prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, Mr. Blanche’s old office, are said to be examining a possible leak of sensitive material by Mr. Comey, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.
Settlement in Facebook Meme Arrest Case
A settlement appears to have been reached yesterday in the lawsuit by a Tennessee man who was jailed for more than a month on a $2 million bond after posting a meme to Facebook that trolled the memorial service for the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, according to the online docket in the case. No details on the terms of the settlement were provided in court records.
The MAGA Surveillance State
WSJ:
In the battle against illegal immigration, the U.S. is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on tools that give federal agents easy access to the home and workplace addresses of American citizens, their social-media accounts, vehicle information, flight history, law-enforcement records and other personal information, as well as data to track their daily comings and goings, The Wall Street Journal found.
‘You’ll See Me in the News. I Promise You’
JTA: “A soldier stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana was arrested last week after he told users on the popular messaging platform Discord that he planned to conduct a mass shooting at a synagogue.”
The Destruction: EPA Edition
The NYT’s Lisa Friedman: How the Trump Administration Ended Independent Science at the E.P.A.
The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert: Can the E.P.A. Survive Lee Zeldin?
For those of us old enough to remember what was once called "The Solid South", where that NYT map of a deep-red South was once equally deep-blue, and the then-GOP concentrated their efforts in New England, Rocky Mountains, and Midwest/Western states for votes.
Yes, times have indeed changed, but the Old Confederacy retains its essentially race-based politics, and now under the red banner rather than blue. It's a fool's errand to attempt — post-*Callais* — to make ANY headway in regaining Black-voter representation in state and federal offices, coz the racism and slavery mentality never went away, and one-party government has been a feature, not a bug, of the Old South, and will continue to hold forth, full stop.
With respect, it's not really alito's crowning glory. It's roberts'. sure, alito wrote dobbs, too, but that also was roberts. he has presided over, and corralled, 6 who see themselves as a super legislature for which congress hasn't acted fast enough to entrench their oligarchy. With ice metastasizing does anyone anymore really see this unfolding peacefully?