Transcript
Supreme Court’s Blow to Voting Rights: Callais Case Unpacked
Amicus: A Law Review · Sat May 2, 2026
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and around the world.
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Be a part of our discussion this weekend.
As we launch into, yes, yet another week of very important rule of law news, we are going to be devoting most of our broadcast this weekend to this major much anticipated decision of the United States Supreme Court.
that not only affects but rewrites and rescins in many ways the Whitting Rights Act of 1965.
It is a landmark decision in a case called Calais, C-A-L-L-A-I-S.
It is the third in a series of decisions going back many years that bit by bit over time have retracted and extracted from
the Supreme Court's previous rulings affirming the Voting Rights Act more and more recently in recent years in these more recent cases, finding ways to chip away.
at the cornerstone principles and concepts of the Voting Rights Act.
A major decision, a huge decision, undeniably the biggest one, the most important one, not in any way limiting the significance of the other rulings coming out of the Supreme Court this term.
This one has got to be at the top of the list.
It certainly is among the major historic decisions of our highest court because it affects what?
It affects voting.
And voting, as you know, is the doorway.
It is the pathway to everything else in government.
Where do Supreme Court justices come from?
Well, they come from the nominations of presidents.
Where do presidents come from?
They are voted on through this process called the Electoral College.
Where do members of Congress come from?
Well, they are elected directly, as you know now, by you, both the House of Representatives and also
Also, the United States Senate.
Where do members of the President's cabinet come from?
Well, again, from appointments, nominations made by a president.
Again, where do presidents come from?
From voting.
Everything we talk about in terms of substance and procedure in America ultimately comes back.
to that fundamental bedrock notion that we are a nation where we count votes and people engage in representative democracy to ensure that their voices are heard, not just in Washington, D.C., but also in state capitals around our nation, including right here in Wisconsin, our state capitol, of course, in Madison.
Voting is the key to everything.
Voting is the key to government and the proper administration of government.
It opens up appointments, it opens up processes by which you can be heard and by which government acts.
Voting is also the mechanism through which we accomplish the rule of law.
Yes, we do also in this state, as in others, vote to place judges on our various circuit court, our appeals courts, and yes, our Supreme Court in the federal system, as you know.
Decision made way back in 1787 to establish a judiciary based upon appointments.
But once again, where do those appointments come from?
They come through voting of a president and also confirmation of others.
who are placed in their positions by virtual votes.
Those are the members of the United States Senate who advise and consent on the nominations of the presidency.
Everything, everything goes back to voting.
And so when there is a major change in our understanding of how we vote in America or at least how the principles, how the standards are going to be applied in determining whether or not the franchise is available to people
of all immutable characteristics, including race and language, when those changes are made by the Supreme Court or by other courts, they affect not only the ways in which cases are litigated in our courts, but they also affect the ways in which you go to the polls and access to the polls, mechanisms, procedures, processes,
voting the key to everything in America, and thus it is appropriate in this first hour and a portion of our second hour as well, that we spend a good deal of time talking about where the voting rights act came from.
We're going to spend some time chatting about its history, the progression of it back in the 1960s, its passage back in 1965.
Two major cases that preceded Kelly, those cases Shelby County and Burnovich will talk
specifically about what those particular decisions did and did not do principally did do to eliminate portions of the Voting Rights Act, collay being the third in this series of diminutions of the effect of the Voting Rights Act.
We'll talk about that as well.
We will discuss in detail what the majority of the members of the Supreme Court said about the Voting Rights Act and its application in particular
to the state of Louisiana but actually to states around the country who every 10 years and now even more frequently than not are redrawing their congressional lines, recasting the ways in which they understand what their congressional house of representative districts will look like.
That happened of course in Wisconsin.
It happened in Louisiana as well in 2020 and in the wake of that and the creation there by virtue of a court directive
of a second majority black district in that state, challenge to that creation, challenge to the ways in which those lines were redrawn in Louisiana, ultimately ending up before the United States Supreme Court, that just this past week issues this landmark decision in Calais, six to three write down ideological lines, six to three telling us that
in order for the legislatures of the future, the state, state houses, the assemblies, the Senate's, if in fact they draw lines, they can do it with virtually impunity, with virtual freedom across the board.
They can do it based upon their own political instincts and aspirations.
That has been the practice for a number of years.
And now, and now those decisions about how you draw lines, how legislatures in Wisconsin, in Louisiana, other places around the country draw those lines are for the most part no longer restricted by considerations of race.
And as Sam Alito tells us, and we're going to describe this in great particularity, he tells us the only basis, the only basis upon which to attack
lines and the creation of those districts alleging racial discrimination is if you can show that that discrimination was intentional, purposeful, meaningful, directed toward the purpose of moving in a direction of limiting votes for black Americans and for other voters of race.
It's got to be intentional.
A huge burden to show.
He, along the way, talks about amending some of the standards by which voter delusion cases have proceeded in the past.
We'll talk about that as well.
We'll talk about some of the language of that majority opinion, saying in the end that this is not quite as dramatic as others may think when, in fact, it really is.
It is the third in this series of major Supreme Court cases.
that have not gotten rid of the Voting Rights Act completely, at least not section two of the Voting Rights Act, but in its application, its rearticulation of the way in which it is applied in courts and by clerks and by states around the country basically removes, basically removes principal consideration of race when it comes to drawing lines.
It does not eliminate.
does not eliminate section two applications for actual voting.
That remains in place and explain why that's still very important.
But it comes awfully close in driving yet another nail into the coffin of the Voting Rights Act that became real a number of years ago with Shelby County.
and then Bernovich.
We'll talk about all of that history, and then we necessarily need to talk about the dissent in the case as well, authored by Elena Kagan, joined in by two other justices of the Supreme Court.
She is plainly disappointed at a minimum by the majority opinion.
We'll talk about what she has to say about the history
of the Voting Rights Act, the ways in which that history should dictate just the opposite, she says, of what the Supreme Court majority has done, and then she will bemoan the fact that we are now in a different world effective this past week when it comes to our understanding of the Voting Rights Act and the ways in which it's applied in our courts and in the places where we vote.
Calais, Calais decided this past week a major decision affecting not just the present voting here in 2026 in Wisconsin, plainly in August and again in November, but for years beyond that, changing the ways in which challenges to voting, especially when it comes to challenges based upon racial discrimination can now proceed, diminishing, diminishing, limiting the ways in which those claims can be made,
in federal courts.
We'll talk all about that.
And then the large footnote is what's going on right now.
What has happened in the wake of this major decision, this major fracture in our understanding of the Voting Rights Act?
What is going on in places like Tennessee and Alabama and South Carolina?
What are states around the country looking to
To determine whether or not they, in the next six months, actually even less than that, probably they've got maybe three, maybe four months at the outside to change their voting lines, changing the districts in their particular states based upon the new direction of Calais.
Will they do that?
Some of them have been indicated they definitely will.
Some others have indicated they definitely will not.
A lot of it depends upon the power structures in the 50 states and territory.
around our nation, but right now underway in the wake of Calais, a huge, huge refocus in our legislatures, in our governor's houses, in our populations generally on what, if anything, should happen between now and early November.
to change even, yes, at this late date, the lines of congressional districts that, again, as you know well, depending upon how those lines are redrawn, are restructured, could change the composition of the United States Congress, beginning with the 120th Congress that takes office, that takes all of their oaths of office on January 2nd of 2027.
This decision in Calais has a huge impact upon what is going to happen in the weeks and months just ahead, and as long as it remains good law, which is once again highly likely given its modification of the ways in which we think about racial challenges to gerrymandering in America, assuming that it remains in place for a long period of time, it has dramatically reduced the impact.
of the Voting Rights Act going forward, and that in and of itself as we speak this weekend about the history of the VRA going back even before 1965, history continues to be important.
This major historical event in American history of just this past week, the Supreme Court announcing vote of six to three, that section two of the Voting Rights Act, this core provision, no longer the stronghold
provision that we thought it was ever since 1965.
We'll talk all about that.
We'll also talk about a few other things happening before the Supreme Court into our second hour.
But stay with us right after this break as we begin.
We launch our discussion of Calais and the Voting Rights Act as it exists now in 2026.
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The major topic, the principal issue on our syllabus this weekend is this major voting rights decision of the Supreme Court affecting not just elections in 2026, but the ways in which we think about voting.
in America going forward.
Let's begin by doing some history, which we sometimes do on this broadcast, explaining where it is the Voting Rights Act of 1965 came from plainly no summary of the civil rights history of the 1960s before and after that will be conclusive and comprehensive.
in the time we have allotted to do it.
But there are some principal features in the 1960s that you can identify as being the precursors, the foundations for the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Let's talk about some of those.
We know, first of all, of course, the Voting Rights Act among the most consequential pieces
of legislation ever passed.
August 1965 is when Lyndon Johnson, in the presence of many civil rights leaders at the White House, signs it into law.
Came nearly a century, almost a century after the 15th Amendment, of course, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution passed in the wake of what?
the Civil War and codified not only our new understandings about everything related to human beings, the 13th Amendment formally, clearly declaring that slavery is no more in America, the 14th Amendment, equal protection for all people, also an awful lot of language related to how we elect our public officials.
And then the 15th Amendment says this, the right of citizens of the United States to vote.
shall not be denied or bridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Again, in the wake of the Civil War, a clear and unequivocal statement that race is not to be considered when it comes to access to the polls.
Now, despite that amendment, we know well
that black Americans and others in this country continue to face some very substantial barriers to realizing the goal, the mission, the purpose of the 15th Amendment, even after ratification.
That included, of course, things like violence, horrific violence, intimidation,
poll taxes charging people to vote you know that is unconstitutional even literacy test also unconstitutional and for many decades before the voting rights act was passed there was great advocacy some of it resulting in violence and yes death by american of american citizens who are advocating for the aspirations set forth in the fifteenth amendment
the activists marching and protesting and organizing voter registration campaigns, some of them along the way, as you well know, murdered, brutally beaten, part of our ugly and dark portion of our history in America.
We know as well that even in the wake of the Voting Rights Act passage in 1965, the Supreme Court, including just this past week, did some other things to reduce its import.
But that happened.
That happened all, all in the wake after the passage itself of these major historical events.
Let's talk about some of those.
Let's talk about the freedom rides.
The freedom rides of 1961, a non-violent strategy, we know.
What is the purpose to test whether state and local governments at that time were complying with two things that the Supreme Court already said about voting in America and about access of all citizens to the trappings of life.
One of those Supreme Court cases declared that enforcing segregated seating, seating on interstate buses was unconstitutional.
We, of course, regard that today as a given, but the Supreme Court had to make that clear.
The other major Supreme Court case determined that segregated lunch counters and bathrooms, waiting rooms, public access facilities in bus terminals were also unconstitutional.
And it was in the wake of those Supreme Court decisions that the first Freedom Riders, there was about 13 men and women, they were black, they were white, they traveled, and they sat together on interstate buses.
again as a way of underscoring the importance of what the Supreme Court had said about the accessibility of busing for all people.
It included a 21 year old named John Lewis who would go on of course to serve on the United States House of Representatives more than 30 years.
His name is now attached to some of the legislation that attempts to remedy
some of the things that the Supreme Court has done to affect what would become the Voting Rights Act.
John Lewis, among those 13 initial Freedom Riders, back in 1961.
The ride from Washington D.C.
to New Orleans, two buses in May of 1961.
Multiple stops along the way, they were attacked, they were beaten.
One of the buses was firebombs, some very dramatic photography of that.
The violence forced the Freedom Riders to finish their trip to New Orleans by plane.
Those were the Freedom Rider events of 1961.
More than 400 volunteers participated in those rides, and collectively, and the violent pushback from the opposition to those rides helped expose a lot of what we know today as the Jim Crow laws, the segregation calling national attention.
the national attention of all of us, and pushing the government forward, not only with respect to voting, but also housing and other trappings of life.
We have in 1964 the Freedom Summer, as we now call it, an attempt to register voters, principally in the state of Mississippi.
Campaign that year led by the Council of Federated Organizations.
That's a coalition of civil rights groups at the time and their purpose once again to register black voters in the state of Mississippi.
They're given the right to vote clearly by the 15th Amendment, affirmed again by the Congress in that passage and by the states in the passage of that major amendment to our Constitution.
700 or so.
College students, mostly white and from northern areas, work with black community members in 10 weeks to register voters there in Freedom Summer in the state of Mississippi.
When we come back, we'll tell you more about history here on Amicus, a lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel and this is Amicus, a law reviewer during the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
We are talking in this hour and next hour as well, principally about this major decision coming out of the Supreme Court this past week, changing the ways in which we think about and apply the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
That necessarily prompts some consideration.
of where the Voting Rights Act came from, the history of our nation, including a number of events in the 1960s, the Freedom Rides of 1961, Freedom Summer of 1964, this attempt by about 700 college students to register voters in Mississippi.
And that event, of course, as you may well recall from history books,
including distribution of information about registration, filling out forms, escorting residents to the courthouses, but not without great risk.
Some of those were beaten.
Some of those students were arrested.
Their cars were firebombed.
Three of those voting rights activist students, their names are Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and James Cheney.
They are people in the history of our nation whose names should not be forgotten.
They were abducted and
They were murdered outside Philadelphia, Mississippi for their attempts to register black voters in that state.
There was another horrific killing that also led ultimately to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
We know that Jimmy Lee Jackson, he's a 26 year old black farmer, he was shot.
He was shot by a white Alabama state trooper while participating in a voting rights march in Marion, Alabama.
His death spurred in part the major civil rights march, you know this well, from Selma to Montgomery, prompted by the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson.
And at that time, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, a leading campaign he undertakes in Alabama to fight for voters' rights as well.
Then we have Bloody Sunday.
And that would, of course, follow.
in many ways, the events of 1961, 1964, including the violence.
The bloody Sunday march began, of course, in Selma, Alabama, protesting the denial of voting rights and the killing of Jackson led once again by John Lewis, this icon in American civil rights history.
He was then the chairman of something called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Reverend Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, also joining John Lewis in that leadership event.
You probably recall well from your history books and certainly can still see photographs of this group crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
They were met by Alabama state troopers at the time, sheriff's deputies, wielding billy clubs and tear gas and bull whips.
John Lewis himself beaten, his skull was fractured.
He said later, my legs went out from under me.
I felt like I was going to die.
The viciousness of that assault captured in photos and in footage shocked the national consciousness and built support for the Voting Rights Act in a way that these other events also affected dramatically.
I had the great privilege and honor when I was the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to join most other U.S.
attorneys in the Holder Obama administration there at the foot of the bridge.
of the Pettus Bridge to commemorate, to commemorate and observe the horror of what happened there at the time.
Bloody Sunday, the marches, the attempts to register voters, ultimately, ultimately, again, skipping over a lot of history here, but honoring those people who gave their lives and were beaten, they pursued an advocacy effort that was unparalleled up to that time in American history, even unparalleled today.
in attempting to enforce voting rights in America for people of color.
And ultimately, it prompts the president of the United States of America.
This national attention focused on all these things in the early to mid-1960s, after Bloody Sunday, Lyndon Johnson makes this powerful, we shall overcome speech to what?
To the United States Congress and calls upon the Congress to pass a Voting Rights Act.
The televised address, according to most historians, watched by 70, 70 million Americans.
That's a huge segment of the population at that time.
And the president arguing that ensuring the right to vote.
is a fundamental principle of the American promise, our goals, our visions, not just by virtue of the 15th Amendment, but by virtue of our Constitution and who we are.
He urges Congress to act immediately and sure enough, ultimately, with a lot more work, an awful lot of work involving securing the votes of enough congressmen and women.
and also senators in the United States Congress to pass that legislation, senior congressional leaders, leaders of the civil rights movement, all of that, all of them supporting the president and supporting others when he signs the Voting Rights Act into laws after the House and the Senate together approve the measure.
The President says on Capitol Hill, today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.
The Justice Department, the Justice Department, again, underscoring the Justice Department of the 1960s, quickly started enforcing the legislation.
That's what the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is supposed to do, which is enforce the civil rights laws.
They begin immediately to do that and they sue.
over things like poll taxes and other prohibitions on access in Mississippi and Alabama and Texas and Virginia.
There is a huge amount of history that follows that, including a number of great civil rights leaders who take office after winning in majority minority house districts and also benefiting dramatically.
from the impact of the Voting Rights Act that provides and ensures voting of black Americans in states around the country.
The composition of our Congress changes and access, although still incomplete and imperfect, of black Americans to the polls increases.
And as a result of that in states around the country, there are efforts to improve the franchise greater representation.
by a diverse American population in state houses and in the Congress of the United States of America, ultimately also in the White House, which is, of course,
are the place of our chief executive and the election of president Barack Obama.
A huge amount of history that predates, predates the passage of the Voting Rights Act that has as its core provision section two.
And what does section two say?
It's very simple, although the language is much longer.
It says you can't discriminate based upon race when it comes to voting.
You cannot prohibit people of color to vote in America.
That is the change.
It implements
the provisions of the 15th Amendment.
You might think that they're somewhat redundant, and in some ways they are.
They shouldn't need to be, but they are because you've got implementing legislation that tells the states and tells the national government how to go about affecting the vision of the 15th Amendment that no one will be denied the franchise based upon their right.
And section two is this core provision.
I mention it now because it forms the basis for some of the attacks that follow years later in recent years on the Voting Rights Act, but it is the core provision and it is the basis upon which the entire law is founded and upon which litigation seeking to enforce the right to vote.
proceeds in the courts of our land.
There is also a second, actually a third and a fourth and a fifth provision of the Voting Rights Act.
I'm going to focus on those as well because it begins in many ways to set the stage for the attack and the diminution of this great movement of greater voting, greater opportunities envisioned by the Voting Rights Act.
Sections four and five of the Voting Rights Act
a companion feature of Section 2.
Section 4 and 5 say basically this, that if you are in a jurisdiction in the United States of America, wherever you are, could be a state, could be a county, it could be as small as a village, and you have had a history of discrimination based upon voting, if you have prohibited people of color.
demonstrably, in history from voting, you are placed on what's called a coverage group, a coverage list, and before you can make any more changes in the ways in which you accomplish voting in your particular jurisdiction, before you can make changes, for example, about the number of polling places, about balloting hours, all kinds of things related to how voting takes place, before you can make those changes, you have to get permission.
And you have to get permission from the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
If you want to make changes, you submit an application.
The folks there will review that and determine whether or not you can go forward.
It's called clearance or pre-clearance of proposed changes in voting in states around the nation.
You may think probably the problematic districts are all in the South.
There certainly are a lot of them in the South, but they are not exclusive to the South.
And in fact, they're also in states all around the nation, including California, for example, and New York, for example, and Virginia, places throughout our United States of America where there's been a history of...
particular areas again could be a county could be a city could be an entire state that has shown its inclination to discriminate based upon race in voting and if you're on that list once again can't make changes
in your policies and procedures until you get the imprimatur the approval of main justice and section four and five is the basis upon which many of the additional aspirations of the 15th amendment and the voting I sat go forward because once again it ensures that any of the practices and procedures that are proposed that would inhibit voting
by black and other americans in our nation that those cannot be pursued those cannot be put in place and they do and they accomplish a huge amount the numbers are staggering when it comes to the ways in which in the wake of the passage of the voting rights act that voters are permitted to vote
People are elected, people of color are elected to positions in ways in which they have not been elected previously.
Perfect, absolutely not.
Incomplete, of course.
But moving in a positive direction at that time because of section two and section four and five.
And then along comes Shelby County.
It's a county in the middle of Alabama.
Shelby County comes forward and says yes, we're one of those those particular counties has been identified for remedial review by the Department of Justice and we don't like it anymore We have moved on we've made changes and beyond that we think that the very Implementation of this oversight this pre-clearance procedure is basically wrong should no longer be in place if ever it should be in place we are challenging
that provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
A lot of litigation based upon that gets to the United States Supreme Court.
And yes, indeed, in the first of the three major blows by the United States Supreme Court to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States Department of Justice rules, rules that sections four and five are unconstitutional.
cannot proceed with them anymore.
Why?
Why?
Because in principle part, as John Roberts and others say, a common theme even to this week, the Supreme Court, at least a majority of the Supreme Court, in a five to four decision says, that's old.
That applied in 1965.
We need a new formula.
We need a new process here.
And until that happens, we're striking down this pre-clearance procedure and changes.
Again, at the time in 2013, the dramatic impact that the Voting Rights Act was having in America, all of a sudden overnight, not just Shelby County, but other places around the country, around our nation are freed up.
to make changes without oversight, including changes that affect the axis of black Americans.
The polls, when we come back, we'll tell you about the other major case, Bernovich, as we talk about voting rights in America.
Here on Amicus, a lot of you.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
this weekend on our broadcast because it's important to understand this major decision issued by the United States Supreme Court just this past week can only understand it in the wake of the development of voting rights in America beginning with the 15th Amendment and continuing through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and then this beginning movement inside the Supreme Court to roll back the Supreme Court.
after nearly 50 years of implementation in our courts, in jurisdictions throughout the United States of America.
Shelby County, the first decision in 2013 that rules that the pre-clearance procedure
requiring those jurisdictions that have had a history of discrimination have to get changes in their rules approved by main justice.
That is declared unconstitutional.
Section four is the coverage formula.
Section five is the implementation piece.
They are together unconstitutional because, again, times have changed.
And the Chief Justice articulates, principally that view, that because the coverage formula is old, needs to be redone.
And until that time, four and five are no longer implemented.
It opens up the floodgates now for jurisdictions around the country covered and not covered by the provisions of section four and five to make those changes that they never could make before.
And that is why we get a huge amount of litigation since 2013, the past 12 or 13 years or so, challenging changes and affecting again, how we understand voting.
in America in all kinds of ways, big and small.
There is more.
During the course of this process, there is a second major challenge.
And of course, the Voting Rights Act continues to be in courts around our nation.
But we know as well that in 2021, the Supreme Court takes up another case.
This is called Birnevich.
O V I C H. That's the name of the Attorney General in the state of Arizona.
He is suing the Democratic National Committee there.
And in particular, the case, Brnovich versus DNC revolves around what is the breadth and scope of section two.
We're back to now that core provision.
And can the legislature there impose restrictions on access to voting and still pass muster under section two, the
Supreme Court's attention is focused in particular on two kinds of things, something called ballot collection.
Can you collect up the ballots from various neighborhoods, including significantly major Native American Indian reservations throughout the state of Arizona that are separated by hundreds of miles from voting places?
Can you collect legitimately issued and legitimately cast ballots and take those to a polling place for them to be counted?
Can that collection process go ahead?
The legislature says no, that every single person has to deliver their own individual ballot or vote in person at a polling place, even though those may be hundreds of miles away from where they are living.
The Supreme Court in a case called Brinovich says that's okay.
No violation, no limitation of voting access by doing that.
And the Supreme Court also says that, oh, by the way, if you have voted in the wrong precinct, if you've made a mistake, you drove hundreds of miles and you show up at the wrong voting place and you vote properly, no allegation that your vote has been coerced, no claim that your vote is somehow invalid, but you're simply in the wrong spot.
and your vote should otherwise count, that vote will not count.
That's what the legislature in Arizona prohibits, says you can't count those votes of people who've shown up in the wrong precinct.
And the Supreme Court in Brinovich applies section two and says, among other things, that because legislatures in America, including in Arizona, have as a legitimate concern, here we go, voting fraud.
We know that that does not exist at least not in any major way in any American jurisdiction, but voting fraud can be a concern of legislature legislators.
And so if they decide that that's a concern of theirs, they can pass laws that prohibit prohibit votes to be counted.
If the person shows up at the wrong precinct, if they're ballot, otherwise legitimate is.
deposited in the clerk's ballot box by someone other than the person who actually voted.
The Supreme Court says in Bernovich, those are okay, regarded as a huge diminution in section two, the implementation of the Voting Rights Act, also authored by the majority of the Supreme Court, including Samuel Alito.
And then again, more litigation going on.
during the time of all of recent years related to gerrymandering, line drawing and voting under the Voting Rights Act and that leads us to Louisiana and finally the case that got aboard the Supreme Court and its decision of just this past week.
A federal court, a federal court in Louisiana finds that Louisiana's congressional map
That map is drawn in 2021 or so after the 2020 census data comes back.
That of course is what every state does.
We do that in the state of Wisconsin here as well.
We are told by the census where the population is, where it has moved, where it has changed, and we redraw lines for the United States Congress based upon that.
That's in the Constitution.
That's what James Madison and people like George Mason wrote into the Constitution.
A federal court.
finds that when Louisiana does that process in the wake of the 2020 census, it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by doing what?
By not sufficiently ensuring the franchise for about one-third of the population.
One-third of the population in Louisiana is black.
You have six congressional districts and only one of those congressional districts is majority black.
And the concept here is not.
exclusively that black voters vote for black candidates and white voters vote for white candidates, but that by doing this, by creating majority minority districts, what you can do is you can ensure that their interests are more likely to be represented in their votes.
And that's the concept that animates Section 2.
The federal court rules that because Louisiana did not create a second district, it violated, it violated Section 2, have to create that second district.
When we come back second hour, I'll tell you what Louisiana did and did not do that led to the Supreme Court's third major case in this area.
All that, as Amicus, the law review, continues.
Welcome to Amicus, a law review with Jim Santel, Civic Media's weekly review and discussion of some of the most significant news stories in the areas of law, government, courts, and the aspiration for justice.
And now, here's your host, Jim Santel.
My name is Jim, is Jim Santel, and this is the second hour of our weekly weekend broadcast all about
the operation of government, the administration of justice, the invocation of the rule of law, this installment of our broadcast, no exception to that broad commission, as we're talking all about this major landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court just this past week.
In a case called KLA, C-A-L-L-A-I-S, need to remember that it's changing the way in which we understand our nation and voting.
Spent most of the first hour talking about the genesis of the Voting Rights Act.
principally, although not exclusively in the 1960s, leading up to its passage, these various provisions, sections four and five, requiring pre-clearance for those jurisdictions that have had a history of voting discrimination, pre-clearance by the Department of Justice for any changes in their voting practices and procedures.
And in the case of Shelby County,
versus Holder, the Supreme Court finding that that particular provision of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, it's equinistic, it's old, and cannot stand.
And then, and then a few years later in a case involving Bernovich, who is the attorney general of the state of Arizona, the Supreme Court going back to section two, which is this core provision that prohibits discrimination in voting, and finding that the legislatures have a huge amount of breadth.
and scope of power when it comes to limiting the ways in which voting can take place, ballots can be counted, further diminishing the strength, long-standing strength of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
And then again, we come to Louisiana, most recently where, after the 2020 census,
confirming that about a third of the state population of Louisiana is black.
The Louisiana legislature adopts a new map for congressional districts going forward in 2024, and it creates specifically a second, second majority black district.
to address the identification under Section 2 of the need to ensure that people in the state of Louisiana have the right, the opportunity, if they choose to elect people whose views align with theirs.
The group that pursues the challenge to this, they describe themselves as non-African Americans,
They describe this new two-majority black district arrangement as being a racial gerrymander.
And they invoke amendments 14 and 15 of the United States Constitution to challenge what has happened in Louisiana.
They say that their rights to equal protection, their rights to have their vote counted under the Constitution have been infringed by virtue of the compelled re-description of two of these districts
And Louisiana officials, of course, initially are defending what they have done because it is of their own creation.
Ultimately, as this percolates up and gets to the Supreme Court, Louisiana joins those people who are attacking the very thing that they have done.
They also join the Trump administration likewise in saying that the Louisiana has done in creating this second majority black district is unconstitutional, cannot stand under Section 2, cannot stand under the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America.
We know that during the oral arguments on this particular issue way back in October, we chatted about this in the fall of last year.
The question is whether race can be useful, can be used, implicated, and invoked in drawing voting districts.
Many of the justices, certainly not all of them, asked whether there should be time limits.
time limits on the use of race as contemplated by section two of the Voting Rights Act.
And so they invoke once again the themes that prompted the decisions in Shelby County in 2013 and Bernovich in 2021 that said, yes, indeed, we recognize that there have been significant, if not perfect changes when it comes to providing black populations with the right to vote.
Even so, isn't that
now getting sort of old.
And in fact, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh says this, he says, this court's cases in a variety of contexts over the years have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for decades.
And then he goes on to say, but that they should not be indefinite.
and should have an endpoint.
And he asks, what exactly do you think the endpoint should be?
He's expressing what several other members of the Supreme Court also expressed at that time, which is that while Section 2 and arguably other provisions of the Voting Rights Act had their day, that time has come and gone.
And as a result of that, should we not be now moving beyond these forced
compelled changes in practices around the country that immediately ensure that people of color have access to the polls, shouldn't we now abandon that?
That's what the Supreme Court is saying in October, sending the very clear signal.
As we reported back then, there was highly likely that the Voting Rights Act would suffer yet another blow, a third blow in the wake of Shelby County and Bernovich.
In fact,
that came true this past week, or at least it came true for the great majority of what the Supreme Court majority said about the continued vitality of the voting rights act.
Let's turn to that now.
A six to three decision.
Six members of the Supreme Court, opposed by three members of the Supreme Court, will get to the dissenters in just a few moments as well.
They basically do two things.
They say number one,
that the Louisiana line drawing cannot stand, that this is an inappropriate, unconstitutional, illegal invocation of Section 2, can't do that, can't make that happen.
And in language that the Supreme Court case, the decision written by Sam Alito, he's also the justice who wrote that major decision in Bernovich, the other case involving Section 2, he says this.
Because the Voting Rights Act does not require, does not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority-black district, no compelling interest justifies the state's use of race in creating the legislation, and the map is an unconstitutional, unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Now, there's a lot there.
There's a lot to unpack there, but that's what he says.
This is wrong.
We are striking down what Louisiana has done.
And then, and then he goes on to say, in about 27 pages or so, some things that also change the analysis going forward.
And that's why this is not.
This is not just about Louisiana.
It is about, frankly, every other state in the union that now needs to address issues related to drawing lines involving
politics and also race.
And let me pause there for just a moment or so to articulate yet another position that is out there.
And another key finding of the Supreme Court from years ago, 2019, in a case called Rucho, R-U-C-H-O-V, versus Common Cause.
That particular case, decided by the Supreme Court, said that
the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, will not address anything related to partisan or political gerrymandering.
That's off our docket.
We're not going to handle that anymore if we ever have.
And we're doing that because partisan issues should not be in our docket.
And so you can go ahead, legislatures, in every state around the union, you can go ahead and draw lines based upon your own political views and goals.
and your aspirations.
You can draw lines based upon politics to achieve majority Republican, majority Democratic districts as you draw those lines.
Nothing wrong with that, or at least we're not going to intervene to stop you from doing that kind of thing.
That happening in 2019 is important because that has always been, again, at least since 2019, the area in which the Supreme Court has said we're not going to get involved.
What the Supreme Court has said up until this past week is that we will get involved if the reason for your doing those changes is not political but racial.
If you are trying to eliminate the possibility that black Americans will vote and can vote, then we're going to take a look at that.
And that is subject to Section 2.
That's what the Supreme Court has said for years, at least since 2019 going forward.
No partisan gerrymandering review, but we will still hold you accountable if you draw lines based upon race.
That changed this past week as the Supreme Court, again at the pen of San Milito, re-describes the standards by which they will be looking at race-based gerrymandering.
gerrymandering, race-based line drawing, and in particular the Supreme Court in its majority position and opinion says this, the focus of Section 2 must now be the enforcement of the 15th Amendment's prohibition and heavy emphasis here on intentional
racial discrimination.
It's actually italicized in the Supreme Court opinion.
In other words, now we're adding on not just the view of racial discrimination.
We're going to examine that, but we're going to look at whether or not your racial discrimination was intentional.
Did you mean this?
Were you purposeful?
Did you set out to discriminate against races?
When Section 2 of the Act is properly understood, the Supreme Court goes on to say, it imposes liability only.
Again, a heavy emphasis on only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination has occurred.
Before it was discrimination now, it has to be intentional.
And if you have drawn lines, perhaps on political lines, partisan views, and you've done that not intending intentionally to eliminate votes among black Americans, that will be okay.
It's only when challengers show that there is an intentional, purposeful reason, a setting forth to specifically discriminate against voters only then.
will we declare the maps that you have drawn unconstitutional?
Alito goes on to say, properly understood, Section 2 thus does not intrude on states' prerogative to draw districts based on non-racial factors.
That's the affirmation in the previous case saying that you can continue to draw lines based upon political considerations
However, however, that will include, of course, partisan advantage, but Section 2 imposes liability once again, only when the evidence
in the courtroom supports this strong inference that the state, the legislature, sat down and intentionally drew their districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of the race.
You have to show that with particularity.
You have to show that the legislature intended specifically
to discriminate against black voters.
Not only does this interpretation follow from the plain text of Section 2, Alito writes for the majority, but it is consistent with the limited authority that the 15th Amendment confers.
Also, noting there, the limited authority that the 15th Amendment to the Constitution confers
very interesting language written here by the Supreme Court.
The upshot is a change in the way that we understand violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
It goes on to say this interpretation does not require abandonment of the framework for Section 2, but this court will in fact have to make some changes in the ways in which we understand
how we apply Section 2, and in particular, some standards that are articulated under another case called Thornburg versus Jingles.
When we come back, I'll tell you about what expressly Sam Alito did, what the Supreme Court did to change the way in which Section 2 will be implemented, that basically, basically renders it a shell, a husk of what it was before.
All that, as Amica Salaravu continues.
This is Amicus, a lot of you.
My name is Jim Santel.
We're talking all about what that major decision the Supreme Court involving the line drawing, the congressional line drawing in Louisiana means, what it doesn't mean, as always, encouraging you to call in, send us your comments, your questions about this very important issue.
It's a lot, as I often say, it is thick, it is dense.
It's important to understand what they did and did not do.
Our number here at Civic Media is 855.
7524842 my producer Max and I delighted and honored to take your questions about any of this even as we continue our exposition of exactly what it is that the Supreme Court said in further diminishing the impact the application of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after eliminating sections four and five Reducing previously section two and now taking another swing at section two that is nearly complete
but not totally complete.
So what is it that Sam Alito writing on behalf of a six person majority says about all this?
He describes exactly the kinds of things that were talked about at the oral argument back in October.
He says first, vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination.
There's your time argument.
There's the notion that because we have moved so much forward since 1965, we no longer need to consider these kinds of things related to what has happened in the past and where we are today because the strides have been significant.
That's Sam Alito.
He says, second, that there's another consideration and that is that a full-blown two-party system
has emerged in the states where section two suits are most common and there is frequently a correlation between race and party preferences.
So in other words now because the political process, the two-party system, this full-blown system has emerged, we no longer need to have section two to provide the kinds of protection that it has since 1965.
Third, he goes on to talk about the case I just mentioned, this Rucho case, Rucho versus Common Cause.
He says the court held in that case, and it did, that partisan gerrymandering claims are no longer justiciable and no longer can bring those into the court, into federal courts.
And he says this holding creates an incentive for litigants to exploit section two for partisan purposes by repackaging them.
as partisan gerrymandering claims for a racial gerrymandering case.
Now, there's a lot there.
Basically, he's saying once again that the implications of the non-review of partisan gerrymandering also auger in favor of abandoning the kind of review that we've had previously in section two.
And then he goes on to say,
The increased use and capabilities of computers in drawing districts and creating illustrative maps means that a section 2 plaintiff, somebody who is coming in and challenging a particular line drawing in a particular state, can easily identify an alternative map.
and that that map can fully achieve all of the state's legitimate goals while producing greater racial balance if such a map is possible.
So you can go to chat GPI, you can go to AI and you can find a map and therefore we no longer need the statutory prohibition.
for all those four reasons.
The world has changed, and we're also then changing the standards by which these cases we address in the future.
Those, again, to get very wonky, as we often do on this broadcast, those are amending the standards in this Thornburg versus Jingles case that is a lot of the focus of the dissent.
And in fact, there is a strong dissent.
It is written by Elena Kagan, and she is unhappy.
She uses hypothetical at the very start of her opinion, which is almost 50 pages long.
And she says that what the Supreme Court has done, the majority has done, is simply wrong.
And she begins by addressing this notion that these standards, these four items that that Sam Alito has addressed, and changed.
She says there are major changes.
She says that to get at these issues, you have to understand where Jingles initially was.
She says Jingles initially required a Section 2 plaintiff asserting vote dilution, which is what we have here, to satisfy three preconditions.
First, the majority group, harmed, has to be sufficiently large and geographically compact.
the constitutive majority in a reasonably configured district, meaning one, comporting with traditional ideas for a description.
She says, second, the identified minority group must be politically cohesive, meaning that its members mainly vote for the same parties or candidates.
That's that notion that you have groups of people who will vote for candidates based upon who best represent their interests.
And third, under the way it used to be,
the majority in the district has to vote sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate.
Those three factors taken together serve a gatekeeping function and she says what the Supreme Court's majority has done is it's abandoned those very objective, easily accessible standard in favor of what I just described as Samolito's reconstitution of those Jingles factors
And that is where we identify the significant change in all of this.
She identifies exactly what's going on here.
She says, you have changed the focus of any court will look to.
And while before, before we always looked to your particular.
ends.
What is the effect?
What is the ultimate result of what you do?
If you draw lines and they are for political purposes, we may not touch those.
But if the result of that line drawing is an improper racial discrimination, we'll look at that and we will strike it down.
And that is an ends test.
And she says appropriately that now what the Supreme Court has instituted is a purposes test.
And it's only, it's only if you have intentionally, purposefully sat down and said, let's disenfranchise black voters by drawing these lines.
Only under those circumstances, Alaina Kagan says,
Can you find a violation in the Voting Rights Act of 1965?
When we come back, we'll tell you more about what Elena Kagan said in response to the majority, and then we'll bring you up to date on what's going on out there, even today, even this weekend, this week, in response to the decision in Calais as the radio broadcast continues.
My name is Jim Santel and this is Amicus.
A lot of you we are spending our broadcast this weekend talking about one of the major historical events in our nation's history.
Certainly one of the most significant decisions of the Supreme Court in recent times.
This case in Calais.
that has dealt another blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, not eliminating it entirely as some folks predicted they might have done.
They did not take the big, big swing, but in changing the ways in which Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is administered and requiring that successful plaintiffs challenging some line drawing, if they are successful at all, can only do that by showing
that there was intentional purposeful meaningful discrimination we're going to sit down and try to disenfranchise people of color from the voting opportunity only if you can show that at that high level will we find that line drawing is impermissible and oh by the way by virtue of this case Rucho that we decided a number of years ago
partisan gerrymandering is still entirely possible.
And what that means, of course, is significant.
What it means is the limitations that previously prevented states from dismantling house districts, where a specific minority group, for example, was a majority of the voting population, or in a particular area, limiting how far each party could go toward redrawing maps in its favor.
Now, now,
We have almost, almost completely unfettered access to do just that.
The limitations are gone.
The court holding in its majority position, authored by Sam Alito, the section two, as he said, does not intrude on a state's prerogative, its choice, its opportunity to draw districts based on non-racial factors.
We knew that before, but he affirms it here.
You can draw whatever kinds of lines you want based upon partisan pursuits.
aspirations and goals.
If I want to draw districts that include principally Republicans, Democrats to gain advantage overall, I can do that.
And I can do that to achieve partisan advantage.
That's what the Supreme Court reaffirmed this past week, and then they went the step further.
And they said that Republicans and Democrats across the board, this applies to everybody, are now allowed to eliminate
majority minority districts if it helps the party.
and predictably they probably will.
You can now go ahead by doing that and in doing that to accomplish what you want to do.
And we will only overturn those decisions, pretty much a free reign, if there's a showing that you sat down and purposely said, let's disenfranchise black voters.
That is a very high standard.
That is what Elena Kagan is objecting to in her nearly 50 page dissent on all this.
She says, so the
majority moves on again.
Now, and this comes in the wake of a very extensive history that she provides about the Voting Rights Act and about what the Supreme Court has done in Shelby County, in Bernovich, and its entire jurisprudence, she says now the Supreme Court moves on again to a grab bag of developments that it somehow thinks license it to rewrite a statute.
She accuses the majority of rewriting the statutes.
The majority first summons the slogan of Shelby County, in which the court ordained itself the arbiter of when civil rights laws are no longer needed.
Things have changed dramatically.
Today's majority echoes.
This is all from the Pan-Avalena Kagan, pointed to increases in African-American voting registration and to the success of African-Americans attaining political office.
particularly in the south, where many section two suits arise.
No doubt that is so, Elena Kagan says, in large measure, because of the Voting Rights Act.
And she italicizes that.
And this is where it becomes an invocation of what Justice Ginsburg said many years ago in connection with Shelby County.
Here, here, we have Elena Kagan saying, no doubt that's so.
but it is a separate question whether those gains that have been made in recent years will endure once the axe protections are gone that basically have been stripped away all but stripped away today and she makes specific reference to Justice Ginsburg's transcended and so illustrative invocation when she noted the fallacy of throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're no longer getting wet.
Well, you're no longer getting wet because the umbrella is keeping you from getting wet.
You're no longer identifying the voting problems and the discrimination that the umbrella of the Voting Rights Act was meant to protect.
Why?
Because the umbrella is up, it's in place.
You bring it down and you're going to get wet again.
That's what Justice Ginsburg said.
That's exactly what the majority, the minority, is once again saying,
as Elena Kagan goes on to note.
For one thing, today, this is a case where the situation is a full, we have a fuller understanding of the issue.
She said, I will be interested to see, for example, whether time will vindicate the majority's view that great strides made in American office holding, particularly in the South, will hold up after the issuance of this opinion.
But honestly, she says, the American people pay
no member of this Congress to make these predictive policy judgments, and more important, the Constitution does not allow us to base our decisions on them.
She goes on to say, it is for the people's representatives in Congress, not for the Supreme Court, to decide when the nation need no longer worry about the diminution and the dilution of minority voting strength.
So long as Congress, she says,
has not done so, and it has not.
It has not changed the Voting Rights Act.
This court has no right to cancel, and she puts in parentheses, sorry, update, using the language of the majority, a duly enacted statute on the theory that it, the majority, knows better.
Those are strong words coming from Ada Center.
It is worth a read.
The majority opinion is worth a read as well to understand exactly how the world has changed.
And then finally, Elena Kagan tells us that the consequences of the majority decision are far.
She says it's a far reaching, they are grave.
Today's decision renders section two, all but a dead letter.
When the states where that law continues to matter, the state's still marked by residential segregation and racial polarization.
Minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process, cracking and packing, as you know, those are the ways in which you accomplish racial and other forms of gerrymandering.
The decision here is about Louisiana's district sick, but so too is it about Louisiana's district too.
And so too is about the many other districts, particularly in the south.
that in the last half century, she says, have given minority citizens, and particularly African Americans, a meaningful political vote.
After today, those districts exist only on sufferance, and probably not for long.
If other states follow Louisiana's lead, the minority citizens residing there will no longer have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
She was on to write this at the end of her...
Very extensive and pointed dissent, he says, and minority representation in government institutions will sharply decline.
At the first stage of this judicial project to destroy the Voting Rights Act, the court maintained that Section 5 was no longer needed because in recent decades, African Americans attained political office in record numbers.
That's a reference to Shelby.
At this stage, she concludes,
This court's gutting of section two puts that achievement in peril.
I dissent, as do two others, Katanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor.
I dissent, she says, because Congress elected otherwise.
I dissent because the court betrays today is duty.
to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote.
I dissent because the Congress, the court's decision will set back the foundational right that the Congress granted of racial equality and electoral opportunity.
I dissent, she says.
And there you have it, a necessarily incomplete and imperfect assessment and reporting on what the majority said.
in making this major change, not eliminating completely section two, but diminishing the ways it can be applied, at least when it comes to future gerrymandering cases, permitting the states now.
Now, as I said to go ahead, Democrats and Republicans alike, now given the opportunity...
to do what they want when it comes to drawing lines.
And so they will allowing them to eliminate majority minority districts if it helps their political party in doing so.
That's the ultimate consequence.
that Elena Kagan is bemoaning as are the others.
So what is going on?
What is going on?
Well, let's talk about some of that.
Let's talk about what's happening even this weekend in the wake of the announcement of this major decision.
Yes, indeed, as Elena Kagan predicted, and as the majority...
sort of soft sold during the course of its articulation.
We have got states around the union that are convening legislative new sessions almost immediately.
The Republican governors of Tennessee and Alabama have just in the past several days called state lawmakers into special sessions.
Those are some initial steps that in fact initiate what's being called a scramble, some call it a war, some call it a battle, skirmishes across the country.
to redraw congressional maps based upon these new standards, this new freedom given to legislatures.
And depending upon how state officials act, legislatures may try to split up some of these specific areas, some of the specific districts.
So for example, in Tennessee, there's a sole democratic district.
that apparently is the target of the governor there.
There is the proposed elimination of one of Alabama's two democratic seats in that state.
So Governor Bill Lee in Tennessee has said that the lawmakers owe it to Tennesseans to ensure that our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters.
He's convened a special session that will start this Tuesday to address the implications of Calais
on the remaining Democratic stronghold in that state.
Lee said that any changes to Tennessee's map must be enacted as soon as possible.
The state there has primaries.
They're scheduled for August 6th in the congressional elections, though the deadline for candidates to qualify was in March.
Again, throwing a lot of this into some disarray.
GOP Senator Marsha Blackburn, you may know her.
She's running for governor.
She has called on state lawmakers to draw a map.
that gives Republicans an edge in all nine of the state's congressional districts, splitting up that Memphis area district that is, in fact, the one that's held by a Democratic incumbent.
The president himself has strongly urged the governor to redraw the state's map to give Republicans one extra seat in the wake of Calais.
Meanwhile, in Alabama, we have Governor Kay Ivey.
She has called a special legislative session starting on Monday.
to potentially schedule special primary elections if a new house map can and is implemented.
Ivy, Governor Ivy, said she wants the state to be prepared should the courts act quickly enough for the house map to be changed in time for this year's election.
Again, doing this directly in response to the decision in Calais.
The state's primaries there are set for May 19th and the deadline for candidates to file, again already passed, it's in January.
Alabama faces a bit of a complicated situation after years of litigation over its congressional districts.
In 2023, Supreme Court ruled that the house map there violated the Voting Rights Act and later that era three judge panel rejected another map that was crafted by state lawmakers and a court appointed expert there drew a fresh map.
that resulted in two house districts where black voters make up a significant, a major portion of the electorate.
It's a lot, and it is complicated, and the states are responding, even as we talk about Calais.
When we come back in our final segment, some additional thoughts about Calais and what's happening in America, what could happen in the federal legislature as our broadcast continues.
This is Amicus, a lot of you here in the broadcast stations of Civic Media, so appreciate listeners like Gary who just texted to Max and me the simplest and most accurate summary of what the Supreme Court has done.
Gary Rice coming in from Madison that the Supreme Court is saying that it's now okay to gerrymander based upon politics and based upon race.
with a little bit of a possibility of attacking that, only if you can show that what you're doing is the result of an animus toward race, you've got it exactly right, Gary.
What's happening here is that the limitations that previously were imposed under section two no longer there, the Supreme Court holding that Republicans and Democrats
now allowed to eliminate majority minority districts if it helps them politically.
And you can do it, do it based upon this very high standard for showing a racial animus or racial invocation or racial purpose.
You can do it based upon that Rucho case, simply to pursue your own political results.
And, Gary,
to identify and report on exactly what your concern is.
Let's take a look at some of the headlines around America as places like Tennessee and Alabama begin to convene to try to figure out what they can do in this new unfettered time of gerrymandering.
You have got, of course, the state of Louisiana itself.
The governor there, his name is Jeff Landry, he has appropriately said, you know what, we need to suspend the House primary election coming up because we've got to draw new maps.
That's clear.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Supreme Court has just said that our two majority black districts are unconstitutional.
We've got to figure this out.
And so he ended.
the House primary that's coming up, Senate primary is still going to go ahead on May 16th.
But take a look at what's happening around the country and other places.
Here are some of the headlines.
Here's what states might do after the voting rights decisions, codifying places like Tennessee and Georgia, South Carolina, Oregon, places where you will or maybe will not be doing any of this, but all of this on the table around the country.
the other articles with banner headlines like ignition of political scrambles now going on supreme court deals further blow to voting rights act
voting rights rulings could fuel an era of endless redistricting wars all up for grabs according to some of the reporting of this by virtue of the supreme court basically washing its hands of this issue having to do with line drawing now plainly section two does still apply for voting itself you'd like to think that even in the wake of burnovich
that other case coming out of Arizona that there are still limitations on the ways in which you can discriminate based upon race in the actual polling places, so it is still in place.
The Voting Rights Act is still in place, although Section 4 and 5 is no longer applicable, and you've got these huge diminutions in the core features of Section 2 in Bernovich.
and now in Calais when it comes to drawing lines in America.
And here is the other point that I'd like to think Gary is also implicit in your good note, your accurate summary about what the Supreme Court has done and the things that are going to be happening, the scramble, the battles now underway likely in the days and weeks just ahead, even in this election year.
to figure out whether or not we need to do some line drawing knowing now that nobody in the federal courts is going to tell us otherwise legislatures now have virtually virtually not completely but virtually unfettered access to do what they want this is going to take off and it already has as reported in Tennessee Alabama an awful lot of indication that other states may well be looking right now to see what they can do even to eliminate
a particular Democratic or maybe in some other places a Republican majority district based upon line drawing in a way that they have not previously done for fear of being involved in racial gerrymandering.
It is a lot and it's also incredibly simple.
It is hugely important because once again, voting is the pathway.
Voting is the open door to everything else in representative democracies like America and the state system and the federal system.
It's where we get everything.
And so if we begin to undermine that process and cut back as the Supreme Court has done on this fundamental notion,
set forth in the Voting Rights Act, as Elena Kagan said, establishing, guaranteeing that every racial group has equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice as we begin and have drawn back on those fundamental principles, voting in America changes in one of the most critical voting years.
in our history now here's the good news as we begin to wrap up and that is there are fixes for all of this we've talked before about the Shelby fix and the Bernovich fix those those pieces of legislation pending in the house pending in the Senate they have John Lewis's name attached to him as we talked before that person who was so much in the forefront of the civil rights actions and activities and protests and advocacy of the 1960s that gave rise to the Voting Rights Act there is legislation
legislation pending that accomplishes fixes of Shelby County, that restores sections four and five, that again addresses what happened in Bernovich and re-empowers section two in that case to establish, for example, that legislatures can, can in fact prohibit certain kinds of anti-discrimination processes and should be affirmatively permitting
voting to go ahead in places where the franchise is otherwise at risk.
You can do that legislatively.
You can address the exact problems the Supreme Court has identified in those cases through legislative amendments if you've got the political will to do that.
And all of this can be turned back.
And yes, indeed, I will say at the end of our time together today, you can establish, you can articulate, you can write into the law a Calais fix as well that would establish what it is
is that courts can and should be looking at when it comes to discrimination and eliminate, eliminate what the majority has said today about the need for a showing of intentional discrimination as the only way, as the only way to attack racial gerrymandering.
You can do that legislatively.
That's what the Congress can do if it wants to do.
Appreciate so much.
your time with me and in the exposition of this major change in American law and the ways in which we understand voting in America.
Here on Amicus, a lot of you have a good weekend, everybody.
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