Supreme Court Strikes Down Decades of Racial Gerrymandering

Right now, as we are about six months away from the midterms, the US Supreme Court just made a monumental ruling, which truly has the potential to be one of, if not the deciding factor of who winds up controlling the House moving forward. The ruling is monumental because it basically struck down an interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, which has, for about six or seven decades now, forced Southern states to draw up congressional maps in a way that maximizes the black vote. If you look at a map, congressional districts in these states, they've been drawn in some of the strangest of ways, because they've been forced by the courts to basically connect disparate pockets of black neighborhoods together. However, this state of affairs, it has just been ruled to be unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. And the Southern states in question, many of whom actually have GOP-led state legislatures, they are now free, for the first time in decades, to redraw their congressional maps without the concern for the racial makeup of the people living there. And the reason this truly does matter is because the black vote is overwhelmingly Democrat-leaning, meaning the districts in question, the ones that are likely about to get redrawn, probably many of which before the midterm elections, will be flipped from blue-leaning to red-leaning. Let's unpack this story together in three steps, starting with the legal framework that was in place for the past several decades, the Supreme Court's new ruling, and then also what this means moving forward, including which specific districts are likely to get seriously amended. And of course, if you appreciate content like this, please do take a quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons so that this video can be picked up by the YouTube algorithm and shared out to ever more people. Thank you so much for that. Now to start with, let's go through the legal backdrop of this particular case. For decades now, one of the surprising aspects of the American electoral system is that racial gerrymandering has been required by law, meaning under certain circumstances, if a state legislature redrew a state's congressional district and they did not go out of their way to give more weight to minorities, specifically to African Americans, then that was actually illegal. Basically, states had to consider race when apportioning their congressional districts. This set up, it came as a result of the Voting Rights Act, which was passed into law in the year 1965. Here is a plain English summary of section number two of that particular law, quote, section two of the Voting Rights Act prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a large language minority group. And so that is what section two of the Voting Rights Act passed all the way back in the year 1965 says, that you cannot discriminate on the basis of race. However, the courts, the U.S. courts, they've taken an affirmative action approach to the application of this particular section in this law. Case in point, in 1986, there was a case called Thurnberg versus Jingles in which the U.S. Supreme Court, they ruled that section two of the Voting Rights Act, it effectively gave racial groups, quote, an entitlement to roughly proportional representation. And so that neatly brings us along to what happened over in the state of Louisiana. Essentially, after the 2020 census was conducted, it was determined that Louisiana would have six seats in the U.S. House. And it was also found that roughly one third of their population was African American. However, the state legislature, they drew up a congressional map with only one majority black district, meaning on paper, their black population was roughly 33%, but only 16% of their congressional districts were majority black. Because of this, the state was sued by a consortium of black voters as well as advocacy groups who argued that having only one minority majority district violated section two of the Voting Rights Act. And this type of a case was very effective in the past. Just within the last two years, similar cases over in Alabama and Georgia forced those states to redraw their maps. And indeed, a federal court agreed with the black voters in this case, and they ordered the Louisiana state legislature to go back and redraw a new map with two black majority districts. They did. And early last year, the state of Louisiana submitted a new map. You can see it up on your screen. The new map contained a second majority black district that basically stretched across a large part of the state in order to connect various pockets of black communities into one large voting block. All right. Just a pause here for a super quick moment. I'd like to introduce today's sponsor, which is Shen Yun Performing Arts. It is the preeminent, best Chinese classical dance performance in the whole world. But funny enough, they're actually based right here in the U.S. and they're very much not allowed to perform in China. Part of the show, it exposes the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party. And so ironically, they can't even go there. But regardless, the show is great. I've personally seen it several times. And the athleticism, the artistry, the stories are phenomenal. Some are touching. Some of them are funny. A lot of them are thought provoking. 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They have shows coming up in over 100 cities, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Seattle, Sacramento, Boston, Portland, Oregon, Portland, Maine, and pretty much everywhere else in between. And the best part is that for our viewers, they're offering a special deal. Just buy your tickets over on the Shen Yun website and use promo code Roman26 to avoid paying both the ticketing fee as well as the facility fee. That's again, promo code ROMAN26. I'll also throw a link to their website and all the cities you can find. It'll be down in the description box below. However, this case in Louisiana had a bit of a twist. A different group of voters, people describing themselves as non-African-American voters, they challenged this new map, saying that it was nothing more than racial gerrymander that violated both their 14 as well as their 15th Amendment rights. Just for reference, if you haven't been to civics class in a while, here's what the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment says, quote, No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. And then similarly, the 15th Amendment reads as follows, quote, The rights of the 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. And so you see, this is where the natural conflict has always lied here. You have the Voting Rights Act, which the courts have interpreted to mean that minority racial groups have to be given more weight in the map making process. But on the flip side, you have the 14th and 15th Amendments, which make racial gerrymandering illegal because it gives preferential treatment to one group based on their race over another. And so the setup here made for quite an interesting case where racial gerrymandering is illegal unless you're doing it for a very specific purpose, which was essentially affirmative action. However, the current Supreme Court, they have been chipping away at the concept of affirmative action for the last at least two years now. They scrapped affirmative action in the realm of college admissions. And this year, with this case, they now scrapped it with respect to maps. That's because this case out of Louisiana did make it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, who just last week ruled that race could no longer be used when drawing boundaries for the state's electoral districts. It's quite literally a 180 from the status quo. And the breakdown of the ruling was the typical 6-3 with the justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Sam Alito, John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, as well as Clarence Thomas all ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. And writing for the majority, you had Sam Alito write the following, quote, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to enforce the Constitution, not collide with it. Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this court's Section 2 precedence in a way that forces states to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids. Compliance with Section 2 can provide a compelling reason for race-based districting, but the section does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map. And then in simpler terms, quote, Section 2 does not intrude on states' prerogative to draw districts based on non-racial factors, including to achieve partisan advantage, meaning in plain English that both Republicans and Democrats are now free to eliminate majority-minority districts if it helps their party win, which is exactly what they're doing. Shortly after the ruling came down, you had the House Speaker, Mr. Mike Johnson, who is also just free reference from the state of Louisiana. He said the following on a national stage, quote, All states that have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully, and I think they should do it before the midterms. And that is exactly what is happening. This one decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, it set off basically a chain reaction which is now cascading across the South. In Louisiana, they have already postponed their primaries in order to redraw the maps. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has already submitted a new congressional state map, which gives an edge to the GOP. In Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves, he announced his plan to convene a special legislative session to redraw the map prior to the midterms. And the same is likely to happen over in Tennessee, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, in Georgia, as well as Alabama, basically the entire U.S. South. The New York Times actually put out a really good graphic showing what the southern redistricting effort could look like. You can see it up on your screen with Republicans picking up 13 seats throughout the entirety of the South. However, it is worth mentioning that these 13, not all of them are possible to do prior to the upcoming midterms, which is a point mentioned later in that same piece by The New York Times, quote, The big question for 2026 is whether it's too late for southern states to redraw their maps to be more favorable to Republicans ahead of the midterms. Filing deadlines have passed and primaries have been held in many states. In other states, early voting is underway. States could try to redraw maps after the voting, but these are significant obstacles. Only a few southern states, including Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee, have a clear path to redistrict before primary voting and without materially endangering Republican incumbents. Those states could yield up to four Republican seats in this year's midterms. These potential seats come on top of gains Republicans have already made in the South, including a new map passed by Florida's legislature this week. Together, these additional seats should give the Republicans a modest structural advantage in the contest for control of the House. And so there you have it. If you'd like a breakdown of those states and the districts likely to get flipped, if not before the midterms, then likely immediately after the midterms. I'll throw several links down into the description box below this video so you can click on them, peruse them for yourself. And if you happen to live in the South, check to see whether you are in a place that might get, what, reapportioned in the near future. Otherwise, if you haven't already, please do smash those like and subscribe buttons. And then lastly, I mentioned it in a previous episode as well, but no reason not to mention it again. We put out over on Epic TV, a phenomenal documentary called Truth Under Fire that sort of goes through the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk, as well as the giant machine that was mobilized to tar and feather him as a dangerous extremist and ultimately put his life in the crosshairs. And with the recent events over the White House Correspondents' Dinner, as well as that even more recent shooting near the White House, what's exposed in the documentary is more relevant now than ever. So check it out. It's called Truth Under Fire. It's a great doc. The link to it will be right there at the top of the description box below. Hope you check it out. Charlie Kirk was presented as an anti-Semite, as a purveyor of misinformation, as being someone on what they call the hard right. He's been slandered and lied about by people on the left. Charlie Kirk was shot down on a college campus, not with a weapon in his hand, but with a microphone. What kind of threats did Charlie face? And did he ever confide in you about these? He would say, you know, this is a dark, dark time spiritually. Pray for me. He'd ask for that. How was Charlie Kirk framed by the narrative system? And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epoch Times. Stay informed. Most importantly, stay free.