Supreme Court ruling ushers in a new era of gerrymandering

Nearly 61 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, a defining moment for the civil rights movement – and a turning point for the nation. “Every family across this great, entire, searching land will live stronger in liberty, will live more splendid in expectation, and will be prouder to be American because of the act that you have passed, that I will sign today,” Johnson said.

The law sought to end obstacles to Black voters casting their ballots, said Martha Jones, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University. “Slavery is abolished in 1865; in 1870, the 15th Amendment is passed, intending to guarantee to Black men the right to vote; 1920, the 19th Amendment is intended to guarantee all women the right to vote. And still, Black Americans are kept from the polls in too many places – by law, by intimidation, by violence,” said Jones. “So, one thing we can say about 1965 is that people have been waiting a very long time.”

Waiting, and struggling, to end racial discrimination in voting. “Lives were lost, lives were threatened, communities were under siege,” said Jones. “And Americans – Black and White – put themselves in harm’s way in order to finally set fire to the feet of Lyndon Johnson, set fire to feet of Congress. And finally, the result is a Voting Rights Act.

“But to think of the Voting Rights Act as an act of Congress – or an act of Johnson’s pen – is to in essence erase the blood from the page,” she said. “And there is a lot of blood in that story.”

That story continues. Late last month, the Supreme Court ruled it was illegal for lawmakers in Louisiana to create a new majority-Black Congressional district. The 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, split along ideological lines, has enormous implications for who will wield power – and it will make it far more difficult for districts drawn on racial lines to survive. 

This past week, Congressman Cleo Fields of Louisiana, a Democrat whose district will be affected, sounded the alarm: “Let’s be clear: Once the Supreme Court rules, it’s the final judgment of the highest court of the land.”

Fields told “Sunday Morning,” “The real issue is whether or not a person who looks like me will have the opportunity to serve in Congress, and that’s what that fight has always been about.”

“The hurly-burly of politics”

The Supreme Court’s decision was the culmination of years of rulings, made by the conservative majority under Chief Justice John Roberts, saying race-conscious policies – in education, the workplace, or with voting — are unconstitutional.

Hans von Spakovsky, a veteran conservative lawyer, who was appointed to the Federal Election Commission by President George W. Bush, told us, “I think this is one of a series of, frankly, good decisions by the court that is saying racial discrimination is wrong.”

Asked about Black Americans who say the Voting Rights Act was not an instrument of racial discrimination, but rather a means to protect the ability to have representation, Von Spakovsky replied, “Yeah, well, I think they’re taking the wrong view of that.”

Von Spakovsky’s views are aligned with the recent majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, which says that using race to draw election maps is unnecessary, and unconstitutional, but that using politics to do so is just fine.

“That’s part of what the Supreme Court has called the hurly-burly of politics,” Von Spakovsky said. “We have basically an open market where people compete with what their ideas should be. But anybody who thinks we’re ever going to get gerrymandering, partisan gerrymandering entirely out, that’s just not going to happen. We’ve had it since Elbridge Gerry, the governor in Massachusetts, did it in the early 1800s. That’s where the name for it comes from.”

And in the wake of the SCOTUS ruling, many Republican-controlled states are rushing to change their maps this year, and give the GOP, which holds a narrow majority in the U.S. House, a better shot at keeping it in November.

This past Thursday, amid outrage and protests, Tennessee’s Republican governor signed a new map into law that critics fear will dilute the voting power of the state’s Black citizens.

Asked about what happens if a consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision is fewer Black Members of Congress, von Spakovsky replied, “Well, if they want to get someone elected … look, if they affiliate with the Republican Party, Black candidates will get elected.”

Do Blacks candidates in red states have to become Republican in order to have a chance of winning? “The point of our Constitution, and the Voting Rights Act, is that everyone is guaranteed an equal opportunity to vote,” von Spakovsky said. “They are not guaranteed success in the candidates that they think should be elected.”

“The complete collapse of the Roberts Court”

Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, says of the Supreme Court’s ruling, “I believe that this decision represents the complete collapse of the Roberts Court into partisan political activity.

“There’s no other way for me to understand what just happened other than they, too, are trying to bail out Donald Trump from all of his policy catastrophes of this term by making it possible for him to win districts,” he said. “They’ve basically said it’s unconstitutional to deliberately create a majority African-American, or majority Hispanic, district, although you can create all the majority White districts you want. That’s just considered the norm.”

Raskin, who is both a constitutional law professor and a House Democrat, says he does not see the Supreme Court acting in a conservative fashion: “No, it’s got nothing to do with conservatism. It’s about partisan determination to give Donald Trump and the GOP a majority the best they can.”

That’s the Court’s intent? “Absolutely. No doubt in my mind,” Raskin said. “Because there’s no other way of explaining these decisions that are not rooted in the text of the Constitution, much less the Voting Rights Act. They totally reversed the plain meaning of the Voting Rights Act. And they are rushing these things to get done before the [2026] elections.”

As the Supreme Court’s decision roils this year’s elections, Martha Jones says it is the latest chapter in America’s ongoing reckoning with race and the Constitution.

“As a historian, my counsel to judges is that history will be the judge,” she said. “Part of what we’re doing in this moment is making a record. And that’s part of what the Supreme Court does for us, is make a record of what has happened here. Only history will tell us in some sense what it meant, what its long-term consequences were – for Black Americans, yes, but for American democracy [as well]. I think anyone who is a party to what is unfolding at the Court now is wise to be humbled. Because they won’t always control the narrative. But history writers will.”

     
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Story produced by Gabriel Falcon and Ed Forgotson. Editor: Steven Tyler.

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