The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, where conservatives will ask the court to strike down or significantly weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and usher in a new era of racial gerrymandering. 

Pro-voting groups Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter have come out with a new report on the immediate impact that could have in Congress. It’s nothing good.

“Combined with Republicans’ mid-decade gerrymandering, a ruling gutting Section 2 could help secure an additional 27 safe Republican U.S. House seats, at least 19 directly tied to the loss of Section 2,” the report explains. “It’s enough to cement one-party control of the U.S. House for at least a generation.”

Our Yunior Rivas read the report and highlighted its most important points. Gutting the VRA could pave the way for new GOP gerrymanders across the south, effectively disenfranchising millions of Black and Latino voters in those states, and potentially condemning Democrats to decades in the minority. 

Read Yunior's coverage here. 

The news isn’t all grim out there! This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a GOP-backed case that could unleash a torrent of lawsuits challenging election laws across the nation. But within minutes, it was obvious to anyone listening that the justices were not very interested in that idea.

Lawyers arguing on behalf of Rep. Michael Bost (R-Ill.) urged the court to allow any candidate for office — even the loonies without a shot of winning much more than their own vote — to challenge election laws in court. But the justices weren’t having that, focusing on far more narrow questions about Bost’s standing to sue. Bost filed suit in 2022, asking federal courts to block a state law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive within 14 days of polls closing. The lower courts told Bost to buzz off, saying he hadn’t alleged in his filing that the law caused him an actual, factual injury (which you need to have standing to sue). 

The Supreme Court decided to take up this case just on the issue of standing, which had some of us worried they might adopt a rule so broad it’d let hundreds of cranks spam the courts with laughable lawsuits. But after Wednesday’s oral arguments, our anxiety levels have returned to their normal, still-extremely-heightened, heights. 

Read more about the oral arguments here. 

OPINION 

Why Marc’s law firm is litigating 63 voting rights cases

Democracy Docket’s founder, Marc Elias, normally doesn’t write about his law firm in his opinion pieces for us, but he made an exception this week. 

The Elias Law Group’s team of not-quite 60 lawyers is currently litigating 63 voting and election cases across 30 states, and that number is certain to rise in the coming weeks.

“Unfortunately, the biggest area of growth has been defensive interventions — fighting lawsuits brought by the Republican Party or their right-wing allies,” Marc writes. “In recent months, we’ve had to add the Department of Justice to that list. While in the past we often found ourselves allied with the DOJ, we are now forced to oppose them to prevent the trampling of voting rights.”

Free and fair elections are under attack: in our courtrooms, our state capitols, and potentially — with the deployment of federal troops to American cities — on our very streets. 

“As the Supreme Court said more than 60 years ago, ‘the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights,’” Marc writes. “We have a little more than a year to ensure that remains true for another election cycle. Let us all commit now to making sure it does.”

Read the full essay here.

It's time to stop grading Republicans on a curve. This week, Marc breaks down why there are no GOP heroes in the fight for democracy and why staying grounded in the truth is so essential. Watch it on YouTube here.