04/30/26

Good morning! It’s Thursday, April 30th.

International Jazz Day!

And in honor of that… no script!

And now, the news.

SCOTUS v Voting

-via NPR, AP News, AP News, and Brennan Center

Starting with voting… (Just kidding, there will be a script. Last time I went no script on voting, I talked for4er like an hour and a half)

One Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down a key part of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, in a case out of Louisiana. So… here comes a lot of info about voting. If you’re new here, my credentials for this are: I used to be normal and then Wendy Davis did a 13 hour filibuster and now I have a masters in political science and this was my entire focus and I may not be fun at a party (that’s not true, I’m a delight!) but this is the one thing I can go acapela on (like – not sing but you know… whatever I’m just gonna talk now)

In Louisiana, Black residents make up nearly one-third of the state’s population. However, out of six districts in the state, there is only one majority-Black district.

Out of six. This is an example of packing gerrymandering.

To correct this, the Louisiana legislature established a 2nd Black-majority district, which was signed into law by the governor. 

Following that move, a group of non-Black voters sued under the 14th Amendment saying, get this… that this was racial gerrymandering.

Part of the 14th says “No state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” and that is called the Equal Protection Clause.

In this case, the Supreme Court interpreted it to prohibit states from doing racial gerrymandering unless the plan passes strict scrutiny which is a vibe and also the highest level of judicial review, which requires a two-part test, in which the government must prove a compelling government interest and that the law is narrowly tailored. 

Strict scrutiny is very hard to pass.

In 2024, this case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court but was punted, with the Justices requesting to rehear it this year. In the meantime, the two-district court remained in effect. 

Cut to last October, Justices heard arguments in Louisiana v Callais and, based on their questions, we expected today’s ruling.

Because they didn’t rule but instead they want to rehear the case on the more sweeping question on whether Section 2 in constitutional. 

Now, the thing about a Section 2 violation is that you can’t just – say it. It has exacting requirements, knowing as the Three Gingles Preconditions. First, the minority group must be "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district".

Second, the group has to show that members tend to vote similarly, making it a voting bloc.

And third, that voting bloc has to show that the majority population votes "sufficiently as a bloc to enable it... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate". So in other words, the majority’s voting power consistently prevents the minority group’s preferred candidate from winning.

You have to hit all three, or no dice. Additionally, if preconditions cease to exist in the future, the Section 2 liability will sunset.

On top of that, you have to show that it’s possible to fix this with an ungerrymandered map. The map also has very strict requirements.

So it’s not like this is all just, you know, casual and vibes and wouldn’t it be cool if…

It’s law! It’s a strict, well-thought-out law. 

We’re talking about gerrymandering a lot lately because Trump is asking states to do it. 

There are four ways you can gerrymander in a state. The main two are cracking and packing. Packing refers to packing, or concentrating, voters in one voting district, therefore reducing the party's congressional representation. Cracking, on the other hand, dilutes a voter’s power by spreading small amounts of opposition voters across multiple districts, and therefore lowering the chance of a district win by the opposition. There’s also hijacking or kidnapping which, just based on name alone, isn’t great. Those happen when an incumbent required to live in the district they represent is suddenly living in a different district because of new maps, placing them in more difficult districts to win in. 

He’s asking states to do this because they know that they cannot win in the midterms if more people turn out to vote. That’s a proven fact. This stuff here, this is a science. Politics is political, but there’s a science to it and it’s a proven fact that when more people vote, democrats win.

And the Republicans know it, and that’s why they’re doing this. 

Sometimes we think about the fight for voting rights as this far-off thing. But it’s not. Hard fought. Never settled. 

Especially not with the Roberts Court.

Justice Roberts’ legacy will be that he consistently voted against voting rights at every turn. He will try and trick you, pretend like he’s a liberal and vote one way, but as soon as voting rights are on the chopping block, he’s happy to be the knife. He waits. He tries to trick you. Like a snake in the grass.

The thing about a snake lying in wait is that, while it does, it misses us… it misses that we were waiting for it. We were getting ready for it.

It misses that this is a fight as old as time.

It misses that we know that voting rights are never something we can take for granted.

We can’t pretend reality isn’t reality. Not if we’re going to fight back. And when it comes to voting rights – we are always going to fight back. Because without those, we have nothing.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

There’s more, probably. But I think that’s a wrap for me. Because when it comes to voting rights, that’s always going to be the only story.

(No news tomorrow)