Supreme Court has allowed states to redraw districts in a way that intentionally push out racial minorities from representation. Which is in direct opposition of the voting rights act.

Jim Saksa at Democracy Docket:

After more than two-and-a-half hours of oral argument Wednesday in Callais v. Louisiana, it’s clear that the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority wants to make it much easier for states to get away with racial discrimination in voting.  The six Republican-appointed justices only seemed split on how exactly to handle the constitutional challenge to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that they set in motion earlier this year when they ordered rare reargument in Callais on whether the state’s use of race in drawing electoral maps to remedy an unconstitutional racial gerrymander itself violated either the 14th or 15th Amendments.  If the court strikes down or significantly weakens Section 2, as looks likely, it would decimate the remainder of one of the most important civil rights laws in U.S. history, and give states carte blanche to draw electoral maps that eviscerate the political power of minority voters. 

Such a ruling would also give the GOP a green light to gerrymander aggressively ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, dismantling minority districts held by Democrats — and potentially giving Republicans unassailable control of the House of Representatives for years to come, even after elections where most voters supported Democrats.  The VRA’s judicial dismantling began in 2013, when Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a 5-4 opinion in Shelby County v. Holder striking down the VRA’s “preclearance” provisions, which required certain jurisdictions with discriminatory pasts to get the federal government’s ok before changing election laws. Shelby cleared the way for Southern states to make it harder to vote, often in ways that received relatively little media attention. The outcome could come down to Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who joined the court’s liberals in upholding Section 2 — which prohibits racially discriminatory voting laws — in a similar case two years ago. In his concurrence then, Kavanaugh suggested he was open to a “temporal argument,” like the one used to weaken the VRA in Shelby County. On Wednesday, Kavanaugh was joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in returning repeatedly to the temporality question, suggesting that for a remedy to be “narrowly tailored” enough to survive strict scrutiny, it must somehow be limited in duration. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that, unlike the preclearance conditions found suspect in Shelby County, Congress made a violation of Section 2 contingent on current conditions — not past discrimination — and did not set a durational sunset on the provision.  While Roberts didn’t tip his hand with his questioning, the court’s remaining conservatives seemed interested only in figuring out which argument for gutting Section 2 they wanted to endorse, not whether to do so. The lawsuit’s conservative plaintiffs, the state of Louisiana, and the Department of Justice all offered options.  While Louisiana and the plaintiffs both asked the bench to find Section 2 of the VRA unconstitutional, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan pushed for merely weakening the law.  Mooppann did his colleagues no favors during a colloquy with Justice Neil Gorsuch, where he characterized their argument as “eliminat[ing] Section 2 entirely,” while arguing that doing so would not reduce Black representation in Congress.  “Just to be fair, they’re not arguing for eliminating Section 2 entirely,” Gorsuch interjected. The current maps were defended by the NAACP’s Janai Nelson, who noted that Louisiana has never elected a Black person to statewide office. All of Louisiana’s Black members of Congress, all of its Black state justices, and most of its Black state representatives came from “opportunity districts” created to remedy violations of Section 2. 

[...] Under the 14th Amendment, the courts have required that the government can only consider race if it’s done in a “narrowly tailored” manner for a “compelling state interest.” The Supreme Court has held that redressing a racial gerrymander is a pretty compelling reason to redraw an electoral map. In 1986, the court clarified the constraints on using race in remedial mapmaking in Thornburg v. Gingles, which laid out factors for judges to consider. The conservative justices could “clarify” or “modify” Gingles, as they alternately characterized that argument, in a manner that would implicitly — if not explicitly — require plaintiffs prove that mapmakers intended racial discrimination in order to establish a VRA violation.  As Justice Elena Kagan noted, the Supreme Court already did that once, in a 1980 ruling that Congress responded to two years later by amending Section 2 to explicitly prohibit racial discrimination in effect. 

If the court nevertheless insists that intent must be central to a VRA inquiry, then it would be all but nullifying the second part of the 15th Amendment: “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Justice Samuel Alito seemed to agree with Mooppan’s arguments that the court’s decision in 2019’s Rucho v. Common Cause — which effectively validated partisan gerrymandering — changes what constitutes a sufficiently constrained racial redistricting in response to a VRA violation. Now that states can argue that their maps were redrawn for nakedly partisan ends like maximizing the number of Republican safe seats, perhaps the Gingles factors need to be updated to incorporate those goals. That could lead to a new requirement for winning a Section 2 claim — that the remedial maps aren’t likely to change an electoral map’s partisan split. 

The judicial activist MAGA Majority on SCOTUS is set to alter VRA Section 2 or gut it completely in the Louisiana v. Callais case heard in Wednesday’s oral arguments for the case. The ramifications for such a ruling could widely reverberate across America, and it could give the GOP more seats to illicitly keep control of the House due to the elimination of VRA districts and GOP election-rigging gerrymandering schemes, even if their agenda is unpopular.

See Also:

Law Dork (Chris Geidner): Supreme Court likely to further diminish — but not end — Voting Rights Act cases

The Guardian: US supreme court appears poised to weaken key pillar of Voting Rights Act

Being Liberal: The Right-Wing Supreme Court Will Likely Gut Key Parts of the Voting Rights Act

"I was working for Mr. T. L. Kearny on the morning of the day of the election, and did not think of voting until he came out to the stable where I was attending to the horses and advised me to go to the polls and exercise a citizen's privilege."

Good god, people. I sure misjudged a hell of a lot of you; it is obvious more studying is called for. Way more. As in, "lessons-that-may-soon-be-illegal" way more.

Since we're already fresh on the subject of elections, let's get right into it with a look at the life of Thomas Mundy Peterson. Born enslaved in 1826 New Jersey, Peterson and his family were later manumitted upon their owner's passing, and moved to Perth Amboy. Peterson married and worked as a custodian and general handyman at Perth Amboy's very first public school. Active in local politics, at the age of 46 Peterson had been a participant in a local ballot initiative to revise the town's existing charter; in this instance, whether or not to abandon their 1798 charter entirely and reincorporate as a township. (Spoiler alert: they did neither and became a city in 1844.)

On March 30, 1871, less than two months after the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, Peterson voted in favor of retaining the town's existing charter --thereby making him the very first Black American to cast a ballot in any kind of post-Civil War election.

But for one unsurprising anecdote about a white voter at the polling place crumpling up their own ballot in disgust at the sight, Peterson's civic action went largely unremarked-upon (in fact Peterson even went on to be elected to the local city council). It was as true then, as it is now, that local elections are where the most immediate consequences happen. But gradually over time, the symbolism and the larger historical impact of Peterson's quiet moment took on much greater national significance. In 1884 the community raised the equivalent of $1800.00 to present Peterson with a medal featuring Abraham Lincoln's profile in recognition of his milestone --this medal is now part of the collection of Xavier University. In 1989 the public school at which Peterson once worked (P.S. No. 1), was renamed after him.

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And further to the above subject: Fascism is a hell of a drug, people. One really doesn't see it for what it is when it finally arrives --no concept of just what it is that you've invited into your lives, just because eggs are inconveniently pricey or because you'd rather your kids not be exposed to history lessons like this one. Fascism never merely visits; it takes up permanent residence. Our Black brothers and sisters (especially the sisters) understood that deep in their bones prior to the Civil War, during Reconstruction, during Jim Crow, and during the Civil Rights movement. The rest of us need to internalize that, too. The past 400 years aren't "just" Black history, as if it all only belonged to a specific segment of the population. It is our history. All of us; inextricably connected to it. If we don't study it and learn about it; if we pivot to the deliberate ignorance that fascism so gleefully celebrates, then we all lose.

Racism (and all its cousins: anti-Semitism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc.) has been emboldened, running unchecked --to say nothing of truly terrifying old-school misogyny. (And yeah, go look up the word misogynoir if you haven't already). Of more immediate concern we've got... what, 70 days or so? 70 days to recalibrate, retool, get at least some guardrails up. In that time interval, please reach out to one another --check on your communities and keep a close eye on local issues, not unlike Thomas Mundy Peterson. Offer what help you can spare. Lotta desperation and panic floating about; folks are afraid of losing a lot of things in 2025 and beyond --you know, minor trifles like health care, insurance, income, savings, civil rights, autonomy. They're going to be looking for a connection. If studying these Black biographies these past 4+ years has taught me one thing, it is that authoritarianism flourishes when people isolate --whether forced upon them or on one's own. The moment folks break that pattern and start connecting with one another, the bullies proveably take a cautious step back. (Notice I didn't naïvely use the word retreat.) So look out for one another and keep each other afloat; the bullies hate that.

In the meantime for my part I'm going to keep doing the two things I know I am legitimately good at: teaching and drawing. Therefore I'll keep providing this resource until I am forcibly stopped from doing so.

tell me which one is your fav :3

then a couple general memes related to this :3

this was not part of the assignment but remember to check your voter registration.

#OTD in 1870: The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting Black men the right to vote — five years after the 13th amendment formally abolished slavery across the country.

The 15th Amendment states that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

Ketanji Brown Jackson has been on the Supreme Court bench for a week — and she's already making waves.

Justice Jackson spoke thoughtfully about the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments during an Oct 4 hearing in the case Merrill v. Milligan. The case centers around Alabama’s redistricting plan after the 2020 census. AL’s new map creates only one district with majority-Black voters, even though roughly a quarter of the state’s population is Black.

Two groups of AL voters and civil rights organizations sued the GOP officials responsible for the map, saying it unfairly weakened the voting rights of marginalized groups.

During SCOTUS oral arguments on the case, attorneys arguing in favor of the map claimed it was designed in a ‘race-neutral’ way, which led Justice Jackson to point out that the 14th Amendment was never intended to be race-neutral.

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