The original article is from the New York Times, but it's behind a pay wall, and this NPR version is free to read...

Quote:A Supreme Court ruling on voting rights could boost Republicans' redistricting efforts
Claire Harbage/NPR
October 15, 20258:00 AM ET


Demonstrators holding signs in support of minority voting rights gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. Some signs say "Protect our Vote."

A major redistricting case returning to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday could not only determine the fate of the federal Voting Rights Act, but also unlock a path for Republicans to pick up a slew of additional congressional seats.

If the high court overturns the act's Section 2 — a provision that bans racial discrimination in voting — GOP-controlled states could redraw at least 19 more voting districts for the House of Representatives in favor of Republicans, according to a recent report by the voting rights advocacy groups Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action.

And depending on when the court rules in the case, known as Louisiana v. Callais, some number of the seats could be redistricted prior to next year's midterm election.

The analysis comes as President Trump continues to lead a GOP push for new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and other states that could help Republicans preserve their slim House majority after the 2026 election.

The GOP effort could be bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling that eliminates longstanding Section 2 protections against the dilution of the collective power of racial minority voters.

Many of the landmark law's supporters fear such an outcome after the conservative-majority court didn't rule last term on the Louisiana case, and instead scheduled a rare second round of oral arguments, which is expected to focus on the constitutionality of Section 2's redistricting requirements.

A ruling gutting Section 2 could have a cascading effect on congressional maps in mostly Southern states where Republicans either control both legislative chambers and the governor's office or have a veto-proof majority in the legislature — and where voting is racially polarized, with Black voters tending to vote Democratic and white voters tending to vote Republican.

If mapmakers in those states are no longer required under Section 2 to draw districts where racial minority voters have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidate, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas could end up with fewer Democratic representatives in Congress. Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee could lose all of theirs, the report finds.

As much as 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11% of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could also be lost.

It all leads to a possibility of Republicans cementing one-party control of the House for at least a generation, says Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter Fund.

"Part of the point that we're trying to make with this report is that what happens in the South doesn't just stay in the South," Albright adds. "This racial gerrymandering has the ability to not just disempower, disenfranchise Black voters and to eliminate Black elected officials and Latino elected officials. What happens in these states impacts the entire country."

How the Supreme Court overturning Section 2 could lead to a redistricting "free-for-all"

In the Louisiana case, a lower court ordered the state's Republican-controlled legislature to draw a new congressional map after a group of Black voters sued under Section 2.

Section 2 "ensures all communities of color can still participate equally in the voting process and elect candidates who reflect their interests," says Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, whose attorneys are helping to represent those Black voters. "And if communities of color are not able to do that, we stand to lose what I think most of us believe is so fundamental to our democracy, which is equal participation, equal opportunity."

The court-ordered map, which was in effect for the 2024 election, led to Democrats picking up a second seat in Louisiana.

A group of self-described "non-African American" voters, led by Phillip Callais, has argued, however, that the race-based redistricting the court ordered to get in line with Section 2 is unconstitutional. Just as the Supreme Court ruled against race-based affirmative action at colleges and universities in 2023, they argue, the court should put an end to race-based political mapmaking under Section 2.

In seeking a rehearing in the Louisiana case, the Supreme Court asked all sides in the case to consider whether the state's "intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution."

In one of their latest briefs to the high court, Republican state officials in Louisiana now argue against using race "in any form" when redistricting.

And in a major shift from past administrations, the Justice Department under Trump agrees that Section 2's protections against racial discrimination are no longer constitutional.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court rejected a similar argument by Alabama Republicans.

"The court could reaffirm the Voting Rights Act as it did in 2023 in Allen v. Milligan," says Atiba Ellis, a professor and an associate dean at Case Western Reserve University's law school. "But many observers — and I am one of them — have been concerned about the court becoming more and more cynical about race-conscious remedies to address longstanding civil rights wrongs. And this decision has the potential to be the tipping point where the court declares unconstitutional or heavily restricts the ability for Congress to create remedies that promote multiracial democracy."

That kind of decision coming amid the ongoing mid-decade congressional redistricting war between Republicans and Democrats, Ellis adds, could set the stage for a true "free-for-all" — pointing also to the court's 2019 ruling that partisan gerrymandering is not reviewable by federal courts.

"It is one thing for politicians on both sides of the aisle to use the power that they have to engage in unprecedented power grabs. But the most important check on those grabs has been the prevention of racial discrimination," Ellis says about Section 2. "Absent the federal law that would prevent that discrimination, I think the consequences could be tremendous and could be felt for decades."

The window of time to pass new congressional maps before the midterms is closing as state deadlines draw nearer. Louisiana's top election official, Secretary of State Nancy Landry, has asked the Supreme Court to rule in this case by early January 2026 to avoid disrupting the state's current schedule.

But the timing remains unclear for the Supreme Court, which usually releases decisions for major cases toward the end of its term in June.

The court has confirmed that it plans to discuss early next month if it will take up a North Dakota case about whether private individuals and groups — whose lawsuits have been the main way of enforcing Section 2 — can continue to sue. Republican state officials in Mississippi have also raised that issue in another redistricting case on direct appeal to the high court.

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/15/nx-s1-556...rights-act

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2025/10/1...t-n2195116

Quote:If you only read the headlines after the Supreme Court’s re-argument in Louisiana v. Callais, you’d think conservatives on the Court were sharpening their knives to “gut” the Voting Rights Act. The reality inside the courtroom was more nuanced—and, for those who actually care about constitutional limits, more encouraging.

The justices weren’t preparing to demolish Section 2. They were trying to rescue it from the legal contradictions that have plagued redistricting for forty years.

Section 2’s Growing Tension With the Constitution

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits any map or election law that “results” in minority voters having less opportunity than others to elect their candidates of choice. In 1986, the Court’s decision in Thornburg v. Gingles established a three-part test: a large and compact minority population, political cohesion, and majority bloc voting.

In Allen v. Milligan (2023), Chief Justice John Roberts reaffirmed that Section 2 can still require states to draw majority-minority districts under those conditions. But what happens when satisfying Section 2 forces a legislature to make race the overriding factor in its map—a move that violates the Equal Protection Clause?

That’s the core of Louisiana v. Callais.

Louisiana’s “No-Way-Out” Problem

Louisiana found itself trapped between two conflicting commands. A federal court instructed the legislature to create a second majority-Black district under Section 2. The moment it did, another set of plaintiffs sued, saying the new map— which passed our legislature as Senate Bill 8—was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under Shaw v. Reno.

Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga put it bluntly at argument: “Louisiana would rather not be here… we would rather not be caught between two parties with opposed visions.” His point: the state can’t simultaneously comply with both Section 2’s racial awareness and the Constitution’s racial neutrality without clearer boundaries.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed him on that very distinction: “You don’t understand yourself to be arguing that any part of Section 2 is itself unconstitutional, but rather that the way courts have been applying it goes beyond?” Aguiñaga answered, “That’s correct.”

That exchange cut to the heart of the case we're facing. The debate isn’t over whether Section 2 is valid—it’s over how far it can go before it crosses into unconstitutional racial sorting.

“Predominance” and the Court’s Search for Limits

The word of the day was predominance—the idea that race becomes constitutionally problematic when it “subordinates traditional, neutral principles” of redistricting and becomes “non-negotiable.” Justice Neil Gorsuch tried to pin down what that means: “Is that a but-for test? A proximate-cause test?” Department of Justice attorney Hashim Mooppan answered, “Neither—it’s when race subordinates neutral principles and cannot be compromised.”


Justice Samuel Alito asked a practical version of the same question: “What about incumbency and partisan advantage? Aren’t those race-neutral factors a legislature is allowed to pursue?” Mooppan agreed—and argued that the current Section 2 doctrine often forces states to discard them, making race predominant by default.

That’s the real constitutional tension the conservative justices want to fix.

The Liberal Response: Protect the Results Test

The Court’s liberal bloc—Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson—pushed back hard on any move that looked like rewriting Section 2 itself.

Justice Sotomayor reminded the chamber that “we didn’t grant cert to redo Gingles,” adding that statutory precedents get stronger stare decisis protection because “Congress has had forty years to fix it and hasn’t.” In plain English: Section 2 is a law Congress can change if it wants; the Court shouldn’t do that job for them. Sotomayor appears to be hinting at here that the Court's job is not to create a test for whether or not something is constitutional... which is literally their job.

Justice Jackson tried a broader defense, comparing Section 2’s “effects test” to the Americans with Disabilities Act: “Remedial action absent discriminatory intent is not new… Congress said facilities have to be made equally open… I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here.”

That analogy—comparing race-based districting to wheelchair ramps—fell flat. As attorney Edward Greim (arguing against SB 8) responded, “The difference is that the remedy under the ADA is not stereotyping.” Section 2’s current application, he said, stereotypes voters by race to determine where they “belong.”

A Middle Path Emerging

Between the two poles, the Court’s center-right justices seemed to search for balance. Justice Kavanaugh floated hypotheticals about “tie-breaking” by race; the Chief Justice asked when “outsized” consideration of race becomes too much. None appeared eager to scrap Section 2, but several voiced unease with how it’s being applied.

Even the DOJ conceded that Gingles, as now interpreted, “reaches far beyond anything that reasonably presents a risk of intentional discrimination.”

That’s an acknowledgment that the modern enforcement of the Voting Rights Act needs guardrails. The center-right wing of the Supreme Court is the most likely wing to build those out.

Restricting Isn’t Gutting

The rhetoric you’ll hear in the coming weeks—especially from progressive activists—will sound apocalyptic. But restricting Section 2 to its constitutional limits isn’t the same as gutting it. It’s exactly how constitutional adjudication is supposed to work.

Section 2 was never meant to guarantee racial proportionality in Congress. It was meant to prevent state officials from using race to suppress. Somewhere along the way, compliance with Section 2 began requiring state officials to use race to divide.

That’s what this case seeks to correct.

What Comes Next

However the Court rules, Section 2 will remain on the books. What’s likely to change is the standard for predominance—clarifying when race awareness turns into race domination. That adjustment could pull Section 2 back into alignment with the Fourteenth Amendment rather than against it.

In that sense, the justices aren’t dismantling the Voting Rights Act. They’re performing a constitutional tune-up—tightening a law that’s been running without an alignment for nearly forty years.

So now we have the left's version (the NYT), and the right's version (RedState). Fox presented the first, then came back with the second later, after I had already posted this thread.

My thought is the right is going to prevail, not to the apocalyptic outcome the NY Times fears, but to something more reasonable, yet more consequential than RedState is peddling.

Either way, it will be helpful to the right. Then it's a matter of the timing of the ruling, as to whether it could affect the outcome of the mid-term elections.

(10-16-2025 11:50 AM)TripleA Wrote:  So now we have the left's version (the NYT), and the right's version (RedState). Fox presented the first, then came back with the second later, after I had already posted this thread.

My thought is the right is going to prevail, not to the apocalyptic outcome the NY Times fears, but to something more reasonable, yet more consequential than RedState is peddling.

Either way, it will be helpful to the right. Then it's a matter of the timing of the ruling, as to whether it could affect the outcome of the mid-term elections.

It might be 5-4 but I bet the decision will be 6-3. Justice Kenjyi Supreme dumb*** made such a legal idiot of herself that I dont think anyone else besides Sotomayer and Kagen will stomach to go to her side.

If it benefits the right, then it benefits America. The left is nothing but commie sympathizing America hating trash.

(10-16-2025 12:00 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 11:50 AM)TripleA Wrote:  So now we have the left's version (the NYT), and the right's version (RedState). Fox presented the first, then came back with the second later, after I had already posted this thread.

My thought is the right is going to prevail, not to the apocalyptic outcome the NY Times fears, but to something more reasonable, yet more consequential than RedState is peddling.

Either way, it will be helpful to the right. Then it's a matter of the timing of the ruling, as to whether it could affect the outcome of the mid-term elections.

It might be 5-4 but I bet the decision will be 6-3. Justice Kenjyi Supreme dumb*** made such a legal idiot of herself that I dont think anyone else besides Sotomayer and Kagen will stomach to go to her side.

I feel the same.

(10-16-2025 12:09 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 12:00 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 11:50 AM)TripleA Wrote:  So now we have the left's version (the NYT), and the right's version (RedState). Fox presented the first, then came back with the second later, after I had already posted this thread.

My thought is the right is going to prevail, not to the apocalyptic outcome the NY Times fears, but to something more reasonable, yet more consequential than RedState is peddling.

Either way, it will be helpful to the right. Then it's a matter of the timing of the ruling, as to whether it could affect the outcome of the mid-term elections.

It might be 5-4 but I bet the decision will be 6-3. Justice Kenjyi Supreme dumb*** made such a legal idiot of herself that I dont think anyone else besides Sotomayer and Kagen will stomach to go to her side.

I feel the same.

I hope y'all are right ... I still have fingers crossed on this one ... especially issuing an early ruling that could impact the mids...

The weeping and gnashing of teeth would be incredibly fun.

(10-16-2025 12:12 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 12:09 PM)TripleA Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 12:00 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 11:50 AM)TripleA Wrote:  So now we have the left's version (the NYT), and the right's version (RedState). Fox presented the first, then came back with the second later, after I had already posted this thread.

My thought is the right is going to prevail, not to the apocalyptic outcome the NY Times fears, but to something more reasonable, yet more consequential than RedState is peddling.

Either way, it will be helpful to the right. Then it's a matter of the timing of the ruling, as to whether it could affect the outcome of the mid-term elections.

It might be 5-4 but I bet the decision will be 6-3. Justice Kenjyi Supreme dumb*** made such a legal idiot of herself that I dont think anyone else besides Sotomayer and Kagen will stomach to go to her side.

I feel the same.

I hope y'all are right ... I still have fingers crossed on this one ... especially issuing an early ruling that could impact the mids...

I just listened to Jonathan Turley, the consitutional law professor at GWU, whom one person here discounts, lol.

He said the left is arguing that SCOTUS has already decided this issue in another case, and there is no need for an additional hearing that they called, but Roberts came out rather strongly, saying they had made no such decision in the prior case, that the case was about a distinctly different issue, and is why they are calling for this second hearing now.

Turley seems to think this decision is definitely going to the right, it's just a matter of when SCOTUS decides to announce the decision (early, or in June), which will affect its potential to impact the mid-terms next year.

The lefts take on this is that voting rights mean minorities should be given seats in Congress. Muh dEmocrAcy!!!

in its entirety, here's She-Jack at her 'finest'...

Quote:"Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act against the backdrop of a world that was generally not accessible to people with disabilities. And so it was discriminatory, in effect, because these folks were not able to access these buildings — and [it] didn't matter whether the person who built the building, or the person who owned the building, intended for them to be exclusionary. That's irrelevant," she continued.

"Congress said the facilities have to be made equally open to people with disabilities, if readily possible. I guess I don't understand why that's not what's happening here."

Jackson went on to note that the idea of Section 2 is that the government "is responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantaged minorities," and to "make it so they now have equal access to the voting system, right? They're disabled," she said, drilling down on the hypothetical.

The lawyer arguing for Louisiana interjected to note, "The difference is that the remedy under the ADA and other anti-discrimination laws are not stereotyping."

"It's not race-based," Jackson quickly agreed of the ADA and other discrimination laws. "I take your point."

"But what you're saying, then, that if the problem of no access is about race, 'it's just too bad,' because you can't have a remedy that relates to race?"

"Absolutely not, Your Honor," counsel responded.

ding dong walks into it every time....

She might be the dumbest SC judge in my lifetime...

When will the case be decided?

(10-16-2025 04:19 PM)hburg Wrote:  When will the case be decided?

That is entirely up to the 9 Justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court. They are constitutionally empowered to announce their decision this evening. Or they could decide to forget about it and issue no ruling at all.

My honest hunch is they will publish the Opinion in late June or early July, with a message that existing districts will *Not* need to be changed for the 2026 elections.

(10-16-2025 04:19 PM)hburg Wrote:  When will the case be decided?

that's the $64K question, eh?!

(10-16-2025 04:22 PM)Native Georgian Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 04:19 PM)hburg Wrote:  When will the case be decided?

That is entirely up to the 9 Justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court. They are constitutionally empowered to announce their decision this evening. Or they could decide to forget about it and issue no ruling at all.

My honest hunch is they will publish the Opinion in late June or early July, with a message that existing districts will *Not* need to be changed for the 2026 elections.

that's the safe bet from this lay person ... if they rule at an accelerated pace, it would show bias ... that's the last thingy they're looking for in this case, Ja!

and to be honest, I think that is the proper move...

(10-16-2025 12:00 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  

(10-16-2025 11:50 AM)TripleA Wrote:  So now we have the left's version (the NYT), and the right's version (RedState). Fox presented the first, then came back with the second later, after I had already posted this thread.

My thought is the right is going to prevail, not to the apocalyptic outcome the NY Times fears, but to something more reasonable, yet more consequential than RedState is peddling.

Either way, it will be helpful to the right. Then it's a matter of the timing of the ruling, as to whether it could affect the outcome of the mid-term elections.

It might be 5-4 but I bet the decision will be 6-3. Justice Kenjyi Supreme dumb*** made such a legal idiot of herself that I dont think anyone else besides Sotomayer and Kagen will stomach to go to her side.

What's bad is Kagan actually comes across as a smart person and is respected in the field of law, but she is just a hack. That was exposed when she voted down the National Injunctions by District judges after saying those same judges shouldn't be able to place National Injunctions during the Biden Admin. Sotomayor is just dumb too. What an embarrassment to say on record in the SCOTUS that Blacks should be considered the same as the disabled. EXPOSED.