{"id":25676,"date":"2026-05-07T14:19:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/25676\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:19:13","slug":"supreme-court-analysis-democrats-will-lose-the-gerrymandering-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/25676\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court analysis: Democrats will lose the gerrymandering wars."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Executive Dysfunction<\/a>, a newsletter that highlights one under-the-radar story about how Trump is changing the law\u2014or how the law is pushing back\u2014and keeps you posted on the latest from Slate\u2019s Jurisprudence team. Click here<\/a> to receive it in your inbox each week.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Supreme Court issued one of its most damaging decisions in decades, essentially ending the protections of the Voting Rights Act, in Louisiana v. Callais. The decision means that Republican state legislators in the South will now be able to eliminate districts drawn to grant Black citizens some form of representation in Congress, and replace them with districts dominated by white voters, dismantling one of the great achievements of the Civil Rights era. The court has blessed this move, so long as these state legislators call their racial gerrymanders \u201cpartisan\u201d instead. Louisiana, Alabama<\/a>, and Tennessee<\/a> have already begun plans to redraw maps to eliminate majority-Black voting districts. Nationally, Republicans stand to gain large numbers of new seats by 2028 and beyond, when states are expected to kick the redistricting wars into high gear while wiping out minority representation in Congress.<\/p>\n

But what about the Democrats? Memes have gone around social media showing blue states like California<\/a> gerrymandering every one of their districts to oust every single Republican in response to Callais. This may be the fantasy of some Democrats, but the truth is, it\u2019s far easier to draw one of these maps than to actually implement it, given the collateral damage Democrats would have to inflict on their own minority voters.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Callais decision is only going to amp up the redistricting wars that were already begun by President Donald Trump, who kicked things off last year by demanding that Republican-controlled states find ways to blunt the blue wave expected in the 2026 midterms, starting with Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another core issue that the mass redistricting movement ignores is the deep loss that American voters will suffer, particularly voters of color. Minority groups tend to vote Democrat, particularly Black voters, who have proved time and time again how integral they are for Democratic electoral success. But as the Democratic Party tries to keep up with Republicans\u2019 partisan redistricting efforts, it may very well have to dilute majority-minority districts in order to expand and secure more congressional seats. When asked about this dilemma, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries demurred, insisting that Democrats will \u201censure that communities of color will continue to have the chance to elect the candidate of their choice in districts that have traditionally been covered by the Voting Rights Act,\u201d but added in the same breath, \u201cwhile at the same time doing what is necessary, as occurred in California, to decisively respond to efforts by Republicans to gerrymander congressional maps.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter what path Democrats take, something\u2019s gotta give. In order to make sense of the stakes involved in Republicans\u2019 and Democrats\u2019 redistricting push, I spoke with Pamela Karlan, law professor at Stanford University and co-director of Stanford\u2019s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. Karlan previously served under the Obama administration\u2019s Justice Department, and back in 1991 argued Chisom v. Roemer before the Supreme Court, a case that successfully argued that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act also applies to judicial elections.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s our conversation, lightly edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

Shirin Ali: What do you see as the immediate consequences of the Supreme Court\u2019s Louisiana v. Callais decision?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pamela Karlan: We moved from a world in which the voters pick their representatives to one in which the representatives are now picking the voters. It\u2019s a kind of an endless-war, race-to-the- bottom type of world in which each move produces some kind of countermove. We\u2019re obviously getting very far away from the idea that elections should be designed to be fair. The Supreme Court, in Callais, in the space of 40 years, has moved from the view that political gerrymandering is unconstitutional to the view that it\u2019s unconstitutional but we can\u2019t do anything about it, to the idea that naked political gerrymandering is somehow a legitimate government interest that overrides interests in ensuring that all voters have an equal opportunity to elect candidates.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about many layers of elections. There are city council elections, county commission elections, state legislative elections, congressional elections, senatorial elections, gubernatorial elections, and presidential elections. Right now, what we\u2019re talking about is gerrymandering at the congressional level, but what the Supreme Court has opened up is that you might see the same kind of gerrymandering with regard to state legislative races, city council races, school board elections, and the like. If what you do is create a system in which minority voters are unable to elect candidates who represent their interests, that is likely to depress minority turnout, which will have, obviously, spillover effect on other elections.<\/p>\n

Can you elaborate on that point: What are the risks to Republicans\u2019 and Democrats\u2019 mad dash to redistrict?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Voters who feel that they have no chance of electing candidates of their choice are less likely to turn out to vote, and that will have effects not just in the district where they don\u2019t have a chance to elect, but for statewide offices for presidential elections and the like. Obviously, voters don\u2019t turn out because they feel that they\u2019ve been gerrymandered out of having any chance of winning. It tends to depress political participation. The idea that you can elect the candidates of your choice is what motivates most people to go to the polls.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to talk about the immediate effects of the Callais decision, which is that it unleashes yet another round of partisan mid-decade redistricting. This effort, for congressional races specifically, asymmetrically benefits Republicans. The states controlled by Republicans where there are majority-minority districts have no internal constraint on how much they can screw over Black voters, because Black voters are not voting for that party. There are some places in which there might be some constraint on exactly how much they can eliminate majority-Latino districts, both because of demographics and because some of the Latino districts elect Republicans, but there\u2019s virtually no constraint on how much they can screw over Democrats, right?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there are not a lot of majority-minority districts in states controlled by Democrats where the politics of that state make it feasible for the Democratic Party, if it\u2019s in control of the redistricting process, to eliminate those districts. Those voters are part of the Democratic coalition, and you don\u2019t screw over members of your own coalition, right?<\/p>\n

What do you think this means for the future of opportunity districts in places like New York and California that are both heavily Democratic? California has already passed a partisan redistricting measure and New York is considering one, while others like Illinois and Colorado could also jump in.<\/p>\n

Well, at the margins, they might be able to get a district here or there by reducing the concentration somewhat of minority voters in existing districts. But that may be very hard to achieve politically, because the politics of the state are not going to look favorably, and the Democrats in those states depend on Black and Latino voters in statewide races. They can\u2019t just eliminate those districts or spread minority voters across a bunch of other districts to elect Democrats.<\/p>\n

For instance, you already have a total Democratic gerrymander in Maryland, so there\u2019s really not much more you can do there. And then the next most heavily Black district in a blue state is only 52 or 53 percent Black. You could theoretically reduce the number of Black voters, but I\u2019m not sure that the Democrats have as much running room as the Republicans do. The Republicans can go after every majority-Black district in states they control, but the Democrats cannot do that because they face a different political reality than the Republicans do. Republicans in places like Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Texas can go after majority-Black districts, but the Democrats cannot really do that, because in a lot of Democratic states there are also state voting rights acts that would prevent them from doing that, or state constitutional provisions that would prevent them from doing that.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, Democrats were pushing a very different redistricting strategy, one that advocated for independent commissions to establish unbiased congressional maps. Today, they are scrambling to undo that work in favor of partisan maps. What do you think that says about the party?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, before the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause, and really now its decision in Callais, there was this implied limit on just how far you could gerrymander, because everybody understood that if you went too far, the Supreme Court might, might actually put some teeth into the equal protection clause or into the First Amendment that would restrict gerrymandering. There was at least a little bit of deterrence. And in that world, moving to independent redistricting commissions was not so much of a form of unilateral disarmament as it now looks in retrospect. Because in a world in which there\u2019s some constraint on political gerrymandering, it\u2019s not unreasonable for folks to think, Well, let\u2019s really put some teeth into that constraint in our state.<\/p>\n

But in a world where the Supreme Court is saying: You want to screw over the other party? That\u2019s totally legitimate, not just, You can do it because we can\u2019t stop you, but it\u2019s perfectly fine, it\u2019s important for people to understand that really, Callais does two things: guts the Voting Rights Act and blesses political gerrymandering.<\/p>\n

Louisiana v. Callais is an inflection point in American politics, something that will undoubtedly change how elections are done in the United States for the foreseeable future. Is there any damage control that can be done?<\/p>\n


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What Happened to Megyn Kelly?
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

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Why Democrats Stand No Chance in the Gerrymandering Wars
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Well, this Congress isn\u2019t going to do anything in response to this decision. You first have to get a new Congress and a different president, and you have to have a sufficient political movement behind the idea that elections should not be about one political party screwing over its opponents, but should be about allowing the voters to decide who\u2019s going to represent them. In the short term, there\u2019s nothing that Congress can do. It could theoretically pass a law that forbids political gerrymandering in congressional elections, using its time, place, and manner power, but the question of whether this Supreme Court would say that that\u2019s legitimate or not, who knows?<\/p>\n

In 2003, the then\u2013Supreme Court, all nine justices agreed that there was a problem with political gerrymandering, they just disagreed about whether courts should fix it. The assumption then was Congress would fix this, or the state legislatures would fix this, or initiatives in the states that have direct democracy would fix this. Now, the court is saying this is an affirmatively permissible thing. That\u2019s a huge change. I mean, no court, no Supreme Court, had ever before held that naked partisan gerrymandering was permissible. And that it overrides the idea that Black and Latino voters should have the same opportunity as white voters to elect candidates of their choice.<\/p>\n

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\n Dahlia Lithwick and Alexis Romero
\n Guess Whose Rights the Supreme Court Thinks Come With a Stopwatch
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

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Until you build a political movement around that, voters can\u2019t indicate they dislike this at the polls in most of the states that are going to engage in this naked partisan redistricting. It\u2019s not as if voters can go to the voting booth and show that they disapprove of this. Voters have to first build a political movement around this that makes elected officials afraid to do this. We\u2019re in a kind of race to the bottom and a land grab, and it\u2019s deeply offensive to almost every notion of modern American democracy.<\/p>\n

We hope you learned a thing or two from this edition of Executive Dysfunction, and if you enjoyed reading it, please consider supporting our legal journalism by becoming a Slate Plus member<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Jurisprudence<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s Amicus<\/a>, Dahlia Lithwick chats with former prosecutor Barbara McQuade about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche\u2019s transparent desire for a promotion. Over the last four weeks, he managed to re-indict former FBI Director James Comey on new charges, bring a fresh case against the Southern Poverty Law Center, and continue fighting for the president\u2019s White House ballroom. These actions indicate Blanche could be a much more dangerous attorney general, if promoted, than his predecessor. As Barbara argues, \u201cI also think he has demonstrated a level of ruthlessness and a willingness to file charges, even if he\u2019s got to know they\u2019re going to fall flat eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Slate Plus bonus episode<\/a> of Amicus, Dahlia unpacks Mullin v. Doe, a Supreme Court case challenging the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to remove lawful temporary protected status from Syrian and Haitian immigrants. Speaking with Madiba Dennie, deputy editor and senior contributor at Balls and Strikes, Dahlia discusses how the court\u2019s conservative justices chose to fall in line with the Justice Department\u2019s argument that Trump\u2019s past comments calling Haiti a filthy, dirty, and disgusting \u201cshithole country\u201d do not amount to racism.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Supreme Court allowed its Louisiana v. Callais decision to take effect immediately, a rare move overriding the standard rule that its decisions do not take full effect until 32 days after an opinion is finalized. But this Supreme Court knows no bounds<\/a>, as Dahlia and Slate\u2019s Alexis Romero analyze how the Republican appointees have, over recent years, shown a willingness \u201cto brutalize, even modernize, their own vaunted methodology of an originalism rooted in text and history to achieve results they favor politically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends of Slate Naomi Cahn and Sonia M. Suter, law professors, explain the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit\u2019s damning decision to issue a nationwide injunction that banned the purchase of medication for abortion and miscarriage management by mail. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration announced it was going to review \u201cthe safety and efficacy\u201d of medication abortion, and now it\u2019s clear this was a not-so-subtle attempt to eliminate access to the drug altogether. Though the Supreme Court issued a temporary hold on the injunction, it does not change the Trump administration\u2019s goal: \u201cto limit access to abortion<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thank you for reading Executive Dysfunction! We\u2019re thrilled to be in your feeds and will be back with more dysfunction analysis next week.<\/p>\n

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