The Democracy Docket team spent a lot of time over the past months guessing when the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) would release its consequential ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. But I don’t think we could ever have predicted what actually happened Wednesday. 

The court issued the ruling just in the nick of time for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), as lawmakers prepared to take their final votes on a gerrymandered congressional map that the governor repeatedly claimed was drawn to comply with Callais — even though the ruling had not yet been issued. Now, the Florida fight heads to court.

We’re still digesting the Callais ruling and all of its possible implications, but the dominoes are already starting to fall. As someone who has previously reported on catastrophic weather events, I can tell you that Wednesday felt like covering a hurricane. I hope you’ll keep reading Democracy Docket’s analysis as we continue to navigate this new era of redistricting, come hell or high water. 

As always, thanks for reading.

The state of redistricting across the nation

Other media outlets pulled their punches in their Callais headlines, but let’s be clear: This week, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said that the changes made by the court’s conservative majority “eviscerate the law.” 

Kagan, joined in dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote what amounts to a eulogy for legislation considered to be the crown jewel of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

“The Voting Rights Act is — or, now more accurately, was — ‘one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.’ It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality,” Kagan wrote. “And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed—not the Members of this Court.”

The bottom line: Now, there will be virtually no limit to red states’ ability to draw district lines that undercut minority voters’ political power. 

And in response, Republicans are already rushing to redraw maps, with President Donald Trump cheering them on. Louisiana announced Thursday it’s postponing its primaries, allowing it to pass a new map that could eliminate up to two Democratic-held districts. And officials in Tennessee and Georgia are signaling that they, too, may try for new gerrymanders ahead of the midterms, potentially killing off three more Democratic seats between them.

Democrats have said they may respond with their own redraws in New York, Illinois, Maryland, and Colorado, but those likely wouldn’t come until after the midterms.

Unlike in Florida — where Republicans’ redistricting plan didn’t get voter input and violates a ban on partisan gerrymanders — Virginia Democrats’ new map was just approved by voters in a special election last week. Even so, the courts could nullify it.

On Monday, the Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments in one of three pending Republican challenges to the redistricting plan. (In case you missed it: We liveblogged the arguments for you, which you can find over here.)

The next day, the Virginia Supreme Court delivered a surprising – and, frankly, concerning – order denying Democrats’ request in a similar case to pause a lower court ruling blocking certification of the special election. The order means that, at least for now, election officials across the state may not move forward with certifying the election results. 

The state’s highest court is now deciding whether the redistricting election — and the new congressional map voters supported — is illegitimate on technical grounds. Democrats, meanwhile, have argued that the court should not nullify the will of the voters. By law, state election officials must certify the special election by May 5, but the closer we get to this deadline without additional instructions from the court, the more likely it becomes that Democrats will get an unfavorable ruling.

As Virginia Solicitor General Tillman J. Breckenridge told the court, “It would be patently unfair to override the people’s vote because of a concern that they had not gotten the opportunity to voice their opinion months earlier.”

• As Michael Li of the Brennan Center for Justice reflected Wednesday: “It’s remarkable how the Supreme Court went from ‘partisan gerrymandering is bad but we can’t figure out how to police it’ in 2019 to ‘nakedly partisan goals override the Voting Rights Act’ in 2026.”
  
  

• Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon (D) did not let Republicans pass their gerrymander this week in peace. As they were taking the final vote, she was shouting into a bullhorn on the House floor: “This is a violation of the Constitution.”