#callais

(Opinion)

The ruling in Louisiana v. Callais says that the long-held VRA requirement of making states create districts where communities of color could elect the candidate of their choice is "race-based discrimination". The vote was 6–3, with all Republicans in the majority and Democrats dissenting.

Justice Kagan, in dissent, says that this decision essentially kills the VRA — but does so without explicitly saying the VRA is unconstitutional, because that would invoke public outrage.

Coupled with the Court's previous opinions in Shelby County (eliminating the requirement for historically-racist states to get federal approval for their election laws), Easley v. Cromartie (allowing gerrymandering that hurts racial minorities if it has a partisan goal), and Rucho v. Common Cause (allowing partisan gerrymandering), this means that racial gerrymandering is now effectively legal in the Republican-controlled American South. Now, only racial gerrymandering without a partisan pretext is banned — and due to strong racial partisan divides, especially in the South, such a partisan pretext basically always exists.

The Callais decision demonstrates the need for radical reform of the Supreme Court

April 30, 2026

Robert B. Hubbell

Note to anxious readers: Wednesday was a bad day for democracy. But a complete remedy is within our grasp. Do not despair. Read to the end!

On Wednesday, the Roberts Court destroyed the last vestiges of the Voting Rights Act. For more than six decades, the VRA stood as a towering achievement in the fight to secure equal voting rights for Black Americans, who continue to suffer the effects of nearly two-and-a-half centuries of slavery in North America and 161 years of voter suppression in the United States.

The decision is an abomination. It seeks to repeal the voting protections of the 14th and 15th Amendments, which specifically prohibit denial of the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Those amendments empower Congress to enact enabling legislation, long-recognized as authorizing race-based remedies to address race-based discrimination. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966) (“[T]he portions of the Voting Rights Act properly before us are a valid means for carrying out the commands of the Fifteenth Amendment.”)

John Roberts’ career has been devoted to abolishing the race-based remedies in the Voting Rights Act. As a young lawyer working for Ronald Reagan, he wrote 25 memos and crafted legal arguments opposing the 1982 reauthorization of the VRA — specifically working to prevent Congress from strengthening Section 2’s protections for minority voters by adding an ‘effects test’ to prove discrimination. See Balls and Strikes, Killing the Voting Rights Act Is John Roberts’s Life’s Work.

Of course, in his confirmation hearing, Roberts claimed that those memos were mere “juvenilia,” the musings of a young lawyer not to be taken seriously. (“It was my first job as a lawyer after my clerkships. I was not shaping administration policy.”)

After Roberts lied his way onto the Supreme Court, he dealt a nearly mortal blow to the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder by invalidating the “pre-clearance” requirement for electoral changes in states with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination in voting legislation. In an infamous passage, Roberts claimed that racial discrimination was a thing of the past in the US, writing

Nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically. Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. . . .[¶] Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.

But that was not enough for Roberts. He continued the crusade to kill the Voting Rights Act entirely. On Wednesday, Justice Alito did Roberts’ dirty work in Callais v Louisiana by writing an opinion that makes it essentially impossible to prove under Section 2 of the VRA that discriminatory intent motivated voting legislation. To make proving such intent effectively impossible, Alito added that partisan gerrymandering was legal under the Constitution, even if that partisan gerrymandering had served to implement racial gerrymandering. See Richard L. Hasen, Slate, Callais: SCOTUS’ Voting Rights Act ruling is the worst decision in a century.

Hasen writes,

So when, say, Louisiana goes back and eliminates many Black opportunity districts in its state, it can claim it is doing so to help Republicans, not white people. That’s an outrageous proposition given the considerable overlap between those two groups in Louisiana.

We must be forthright about the effect of Callais: It is a devastating blow to voting rights for Black Americans. It will result in partisan gerrymandering in dozens of states to dilute the voting power of Black voters. The cascading consequences will be bad for democracy, which presumes that voters choose their representatives, not that representatives choose their voters. See Ian Millhiser, Vox, Supreme Court guts the Voting Rights Act. Prepare for maximum gerrymandering.

Before I go any further in describing the opinion, it is important to recognize that we have a complete remedy within our grasp. The evil engine of John Roberts’ master plan to establish Jim Crow 2.0 is partisan gerrymandering, which serves as cover for racial gerrymandering after the Callais decision.

If only there were a way to prevent partisan gerrymandering, we could eliminate racial gerrymandering, thereby achieving the objectives of the Voting Rights Act.

The good news is that there are remedies that will allow us to end partisan and racial gerrymandering. Those remedies will create congressionally mandated national redistricting commissions and national redistricting criteria to replace state legislatures in drawing congressional maps.

Democrats have proposed two pieces of legislation that would do just that:

The Redistricting Reform Act of 2025 (Would require every state to adopt nonpartisan, independent redistricting commissions and prohibit mid-census redistricting); and

The Freedom to Vote Act (Would establish enforceable anti-gerrymandering criteria for use in redistricting, and authorize national mail voting, automatic voter registration, online registration, etc.)

What would we need to do in order to enact nationwide redistricting commissions and criteria?

We would need to control both chambers in Congress, abolish the filibuster, and elect a Democratic president. We can accomplish each of those tasks by January 2029, when the new Congress and president are sworn in.

We are on our way to retaking control of Congress and electing a Democratic president. And we must abolish the filibuster to pass democracy-saving legislation. Republicans are already whittling away at the filibuster as we speak in order to fund ICE and Border Patrol with obscene amounts of money. See Politico, Republicans unlock filibuster-skirting power to pump billions of dollars to ICE.

If Republicans are willing to narrow the filibuster to fund ICE, we should be willing to overthrow the filibuster to reestablish fair congressional boundaries that respect the rights of all Americans to have their votes count.

John Robert will undoubtedly be peeved to see his life’s work overruled by Congress and would likely do everything in his power to undermine new pro-voter legislation. That is why we must also expand the Supreme Court in 2029.

Richard Hasen addresses this need in his essay in Slate, Callais: SCOTUS’ Voting Rights Act ruling is the worst decision in a century.

Hasen writes,

So what’s to be done? The Supreme Court itself has shown itself to be the enemy of democracy. If and when Democrats retake control of the political branches, it will be incumbent on them not only to write new voting legislation protecting minority voters and all voters in the ability to participate fairly in elections that reflect the will of all the people; they will also have to consider reform of the Supreme Court itself, a conclusion I had been resisting until the court made this unavoidable.

Richard Hasen is a sober, respected institutionalist who has been resisting the call to reform the Supreme Court. But after the Callais decision, he says that the Court is “the enemy of democracy.” He calls for passage of legislation (described above) and for “reform of the Supreme Court.”

The only Supreme Court reform that can be achieved in a timeframe relevant to this generation and the next is to expand the Court by a substantial number of justices committed to overruling the following cases in short order:

Citizens United (money in politics),

Trump v. US (presidential immunity),

Dobbs (overruling Roe),

Callais (partisan gerrymandering allowed as cover for racial gerrymandering),

West Virginia v. EPA (major questions doctrine),

303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, (allowing discrimination against same sex couples),

United States v. Skrmetti (ban on gender affirming care for trans youth),

Heller (individual right to bear arms),

NY Pistol v. Bruen (right to carry firearms in public),

Garland v. Cargill (automatic rifles with bump stocks are not machine guns).

If an expanded Supreme Court could overrule those ten cases in the span of four years, we would go a long way toward undoing the worst damage inflicted by John Roberts. Separately, the new majority justices must affirm to cease use of the “shadow docket” to grant relief or make decisions in a summary fashion.

Passage of two pieces of legislation and reforming the Supreme Court is within our grasp. Still, many will claim that those measures are too extreme, arguing that we should “go slow” to avoid injuring the “legitimacy of the Court.” Justice Roberts and his cronies have demonstrated no concern for the legitimacy of the Court. They lied to the Senate in their confirmation hearings, invented new procedures, and inserted words into the Constitution that are contrary to its structure, history, and text, as well as the intent of the Framers.

As I said, the Calais decision is an abomination. I must move on to other stories, but I urge you to read the articles cited above by Ian Millhiser in Vox and Richard Hasen in Slate to get a sense of the extreme bad faith of Alito’s opinion.

It was a bad day in the Supreme Court. But we are on the cusp of regaining the political power that will allow us to undo most of John Roberts’ damage. The sting of Callais will linger for several years, but if we are bold and courageous, John Roberts’s worst will be a distant memory in six years.

Potential resumption of active hostilities against Iran

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testified before Congress for six hours, during which he claimed that “[t] he biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.” See PBS. Hegseth’s testimony was disgraceful, proving only that he is a clone of Donald Trump without Trump’s charm and intelligence. See WaPo, Hegseth slams ‘defeatist’ lawmakers in fiery House hearing on military budget.

The Hegseth debacle may have spurred Trump to kick-start another wave of hostilities directed at Iran—this time at civilian infrastructure. Trump is reportedly frustrated that Iran has not been bombed into submission at the bargaining table, so he is in consultations to begin another wave of assaults. See Axios, Scoop: Commanders to brief Trump on new Iran military options Thursday.

Axios has morphed into an unofficial wing of the Defense Department media office, so its information typically comes from senior administration officials, including Trump and Hegseth. According to Axios, Trump will be presented with three options:

Renewed air assaults, this time directed at civilian infrastructure;

Partial takeover of Strait of Hormuz using ground troops; and

A special forces assault to capture and remove hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium, likely buried underground.

The first option is the definition of a war crime; the second two options might result in heavy US casualties while posing a significant risk of failure.

But even if Iran were to “re-open” the Strait of Hormuz tomorrow, it would take six months to clear the mines and then several months more to repair storage, production, and loading facilities, and to refill the transportation pipeline. Expect a return to normal within a year if a complete resolution of the war occurs within the next 24 hours.

May Day Strong

On May 1, 2026, multiple grassroots groups are co-sponsoring a national day of boycott and action, May Day Strong. The day has two components—an economic boycott—and local actions. See May Day Participation Guide | Indivisible.

The Indivisible Guide is quite good because it allows you to find a local event, and provides guidance for how to participate. Importantly, it addresses the question of what to do if you can’t afford to boycott work, school, or shopping. I recommend the section in the guide titled “Can’t Do It All?” Do What You Can!, which provides in part:

If you can join an event and fully wield your economic power on that day–that’s great. But we understand that not everyone’s circumstances will allow them to participate fully. And that’s okay—participate to the level that makes sense for you. The most important thing is that you take action in some way on May 1st and then continue to build towards even bigger action in the future.

May Day Strong is a first step, a trial run. A day may come when we need to shut down the economy for days or weeks at a time. Join May Day Strong in whatever way and to whatever extent you can. The practice will prepare us for future actions. Stay May Day Strong!

Concluding Thoughts

Many publications are already running stories about how the Callais decision will affect the midterms. While I don’t know the specific number of seats at risk, I urge people to remain calm and to avoid catastrophizing. It would be difficult to gerrymander districts where primaries have already begun—which includes most congressional districts in America. See Votebeat,

However, [redistricting after Callais] is more likely to happen for the 2028 election, not 2026. It would be, practically speaking, very difficult for most states to redraw their maps at this stage. Mississippi, for instance, has already held its primary under the old lines, and Georgia’s primary is in just a few weeks. And the deadline for candidates to file to run has already passed in most states, including South Carolina and Tennessee.

Moreover, gerrymandering has mathematical limits. The number of districts in each state is fixed, and the number of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents is relatively stable. Redistributing those voters across a fixed number of districts may be mathematically possible, but politically unwise.

Take Texas as an example. Texas’s five gerrymandered districts used Latino and Independent voting patterns from 2024 to redistribute presumptive GOP voters into districts that were formerly “Democratic.” But between Election Day 2024 and today, Trump has lost eight percentage points among Latino voters in Texas and 12 percentage points among Independents in Texas. See The Texas Politics Project (February 23, 2026), Texas Republicans Remain Loyal to Trump While His Job Approval Sags Among Other Groups.

The changes noted above effectively flipped Trump’s standing among Latino voters from 2024 levels—and that change predated the sharp rise in gasoline prices because of Trump’s war on Iran.

In effect, Republicans “counted their chickens before they hatched.” They distributed voters who now view Trump unfavorably across districts that were formerly Democratic-majority districts—perhaps reinforcing Democratic strength in districts that were targeted to be weakened.

The 2026 midterms look like they will be a wave election. Even with recent changes in Florida, and the possibility that the gains in Virginia will be invalidated by the Virginia Supreme Court, the effect of the “wave” should overwhelm the gerrymandering at the margins.

The 2024 presidential election was decided by the 80 million eligible voters who “did not vote.” History is not destiny. We can shape the future. Let’s not let the terrible decision in Callais demotivate us. We are not potted plants; we have agency, power, and determination. Let’s use those attributes to the fullest extent possible. We can win; we are winning. We need only continue on the current path to ensure victory in 2026 and 2028.

(Source)

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 3, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

Jun 04, 2026

Last night, in an unsigned opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court expanded its finding in the recent Louisiana v. Callais decision. That decision overturned decades of law to declare that states could not construct majority-minority voting districts, as they had done under Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to ensure Black voters had the opportunity to elect members of Congress who would represent the interests of the Black community.

After handing down the Callais decision, the Supreme Court sent a case involving Alabama’s map back to the state. One lower court had ruled the 2023 map unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment and, in diluting Black voting by spreading Black voters across three districts, eliminated a majority-Black district in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

As Lawrence Hurley of NBC News reported, on May 26 a panel of three judges reaffirmed that the map showed intentional discrimination and was unconstitutional. The state took the case to the Supreme Court, and last night the right-wing justices allowed the state to use the 2023 map, saying it was likely to win its case that the map was lawfully drawn.

And so, Alabama will likely replace a Black Democratic lawmaker with a white Republican, using a map that previous courts have said violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Republican lawmakers currently in power appear to be trying to grab as much power as they can as President Donald J. Trump deteriorates both personally and politically.

Today, a day after visiting the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House said was a six-month physical that he said went “PERFECTLY,” the nearly 80-year-old Trump appeared in public for the first time since May 27. He seemed tired and vague.

In the House of Representatives, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio was testifying before the Foreign Relations Committee about Trump’s 2027 budget requests for the State Department, Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) played a video of Trump sleeping in two Cabinet meetings as Rubio was talking, and asked how the president could make good decisions about war if he couldn’t stay awake even during public events.

Rubio insisted he had never seen Trump asleep in a meeting, although in the instances Lieu showed, the president was sleeping in a chair directly beside him. Lieu accused Rubio of lying to Congress.

The weekend’s promises of an end to the war on Iran have fizzled, and the economy is slowing under the pressure of higher oil prices. The administration announced on Monday that it is dropping tariffs on imported farm and construction equipment from 25% to 15% to ease prices, proving—as critics have maintained all along—that the tariffs are in fact raising prices.

On Sunday, when Shannon Bream of the Fox News Channel asked Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett about a Wall Street Journal report that delinquent credit card balances are at their highest level in 15 years as people use their credit cards for necessities, Hassett centered not the American people but the credit card companies. “We talk to the CEOs of the credit card companies all the time, and we do see some increased stress like the numbers that the Wall Street Journal quotes, but for the most part…there’s not any kind of…financial threat to the credit card companies.”

Americans trying to navigate rising prices by putting necessities on their credit cards were not likely to be concerned about how their financial pain might hurt credit card companies.

As Trump and the administration falter, the MAGA leaders Trump has installed in the government are pushing their agenda as fast as they can. Russell Vought, the co-author of Project 2025 who directs the the Office of Management and Budget and who therefore has the power—although not the authority—to ignore the laws Congress has passed for the expenditure of money, proposed last Thursday, May 28, that political appointees in his office should have final say over research grants, including those for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other governmental science agencies.

The proposal promises to root out “a ‘woke’ policy agenda that deliberately favor[s] certain identity groups over others.” In addition to submitting scientific research to political approval, the new rules would also stop international research collaboration unless it was approved by political appointees.

Aligning with Project 2025, which criticizes federal science programs for paying too much attention to climate change, the Trump administration is also tearing out a $368 million deep-ocean observation system along the Pacific Coast that monitors marine ecosystems, coastal environments, and the ocean currents that affect climate change. Eric Niiler of the New York Times reported that the U.S. began operating the system in 2016 and expected it to continue for 25 years.

Democrats have pledged to fight the plan to tear out the observation system.

While those empowered by his 2024 win are pushing through their agenda, Trump himself appears to have abandoned any pretense of governing and is focusing on his Ultimate Fighting Championship ring in front of the White House—today he suggested making it permanent—and the painting of the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Today he showed to reporters images of how the Reflecting Pool is longer than skyscrapers are tall and that he is having it painted “American Flag Blue.”

He is also trying to cement control over the government. Today Trump signed an executive order stripping nearly 10,000 career civil service workers of their protected status, making it possible for the president to fire them at will. This move was introduced late in Trump’s first term but rescinded under President Joe Biden, and was a key part of Project 2025.

Trump’s announcement yesterday that he is nominating the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, William Pulte, as acting director of national intelligence (DNI) illustrated that he is willing to pervert one of the most important positions in the U.S. government to his own whims. Pulte has no experience in intelligence, but he has demonstrated a willingness to persecute Trump’s perceived political enemies. By making him an acting director, Trump can get around the requirement for Senate confirmation.

But lawmakers who will have to face the voters in November appear to be getting queasy at being tied to Trump’s actions. Pulte’s nomination could be a bridge too far. The nomination threatens the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which expires on June 12. Right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec has called for Pulte to take control of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to “start digging in on the domestic side of terrorism as well as the international,” and Democratic lawmakers have said they will not renew the controversial Section 702 of FISA with Pulte as DNI.

Section 702 permits intelligence agencies to collect the communications of foreigners operating outside the U.S. without a judicial warrant. But in the process of that collection, the communications of U.S. citizens often get swept up. As Joseph Gedeon of The Guardian notes, the FBI used Section 702 to investigate protesters in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has led the charge against renewing FISA without significant protections for American citizens, warned that Pulte could use Section 702 as a political weapon, abusing surveillance powers for purposes of blackmail, smear campaigns, or attacks on lawmakers, nonprofits, or activists. Legal analyst Joyce White Vance added that Pulte could use his position to seize ballots or election equipment. Wyden urged lawmakers to refuse to reauthorize FISA “without strong new safeguards for Americans’ rights.”

Mark Warner (D-VA), the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the person who can deliver the necessary Democratic votes for the renewal of FISA, warned that Pulte’s nomination could doom the measure’s reauthorization. Even Republicans, including former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), are objecting to Pulte, citing his lack of intelligence experience, which the law requires for a DNI head, as a deal-breaker.

House Republicans are also starting to balk at the administration’s actions.

Meredith Lee Hill and Calen Razor of Politico reported today that House leaders had to push back votes today when Republicans didn’t show up from their holiday week. The House has been at work 43 fewer days in this congressional session than the Senate has as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has avoided pushback against Trump in the House by keeping members away from Washington. The Republican majority in the House is so slim that attendance issues have forced Johnson to delay votes to prevent Democrats from defeating bills. Now that members don’t want to go on the record either against Trump or for him, the ability of the House to get through the work it needs to is in jeopardy.

Johnson’s slipping control over the House showed today when the House voted to pass a resolution, introduced by Democrats, telling Trump either to stop further strikes against Iran or to get congressional approval for them. Johnson sent House members home early before the Memorial Day holiday to keep such a measure from passing, but today it did, by a vote of 215 to 208. Although Johnson warned that the resolution was “very dangerous” and would “weaken” Trump’s ability to find a way out of the conflict, members passed it, likely noting that according to a recent New York Times–Siena College poll, 64% of registered voters think Trump’s decision to go to war was wrong, while only 30% approve of it.

Shortly after passing that measure, the House rebuked both Trump and Johnson a second time when it advanced a measure that would aid Ukraine in its war to repel Russia’s invasion by a vote of 218 to 204. If the measure now passes the House and then the Senate, it will provide $8 billion in loans and $300 million in security aid.

Trump does not appear to be taking his loss of power well, retreating to the traditional Republican position that anyone who disagrees with him is a communist. This afternoon, he posted on social media: “Communists always do well with the Voters or, as they would say, THE PEOPLE, in the Early Years! But, in the end, the Country, State, or City, GOES TO HELL! Great Violence proceeds at levels never seen before, and the entity dissolves into Poverty, Squalor, and Crime. Remember, breathtaking ‘Popularity’ first, and then, guaranteed DEATH AND DESTRUCTION! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

Louisiana’s Secretary of State on Thursday announced the state would suspend the May 16 House primaries in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the state’s congressional map one day earlier.  The Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday about Louisiana’s congressional map could have implications for several southern states, as it weakened the relevant section of the Voting Rights Act about…