By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais allowed southern Republicans to conduct partisan gerrymanders, unencumbered by Voting Rights Act protections for minority representation. Now, in the Court’s first ruling implementing Callais, the same six justices have made it clear that they’re not just welcoming gerrymanders that eliminate majority-Black congressional districts — they’re signaling “Go, go, go!”
In an unsigned shadow-docket order, the Supreme Court dismissed a lower-court decision that had stopped Alabama from imposing a new set of gerrymandered districts in the middle of an election cycle. Worse yet, the new districts are based on a map that lower courts have repeatedly called out for deliberate racial discrimination. Apparently, Callais made all things new and bad things mandatory.
