What the Supreme Court’s voting rights ruling means for redistricting | ChicagoLIVE

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]And the major decision from the Supreme Court yesterday on the Voting Rights Act has caused a lot of questions and even movement today. Some votes that have been held up as as people are waiting to see what exactly are all the states going to do parties going to do as a result of of this striking down redistricting map that was challenged in Louisiana.

[00:00:29]But what are the implications well beyond that one state? We have Professor Michael Kang who is joining us now Northwestern Professor. We certainly appreciate you being here.

[00:00:40]Thanks for having me.

[00:00:42]What was your initial reaction? Were you shocked or were you pretty certain things were going in this direction for the Voting Rights Act?

[00:00:52]I was pretty certain that the outcome would be something in this direction, but it's still shocking to see really the most successful piece of American legislation from the 20th century essentially rendered dead letter. You know it the decision yesterday in Kelly versus Louisiana guts the Voting Rights Act and and that's always shocking to see. So it's one decision that has so many different implications. Talk a little bit about that.

[00:01:24]Yeah, it really transforms Voting Rights Law and really leaves basically no protections for racial minorities against discrimination in voting. It really makes it basically impossible to bring a section two claim and reduces even if you win the remedies to nothing like what we've seen for the last 50 years under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. So the consequences are pretty dramatic both in terms of racial representation in terms of the partisan balance of power. Obviously the latter is what we've been sort of arguing about and seeing a lot of maneuvering between the two parties in the redistricting area for at least the last 12 months where the parties are trying to re redistrict in a number of states and try to change the balance of power for the 2026 elections. I think this Kelly decision potentially kind of makes all of that stuff a moot point depending on what happens in the southern states between now and November. And and yes, it's interesting that of course we're having this discussion with midterms just months away and primaries you know that that have been happening and so votes are already being held up that were supposed to be taking place in in just the next few weeks.

[00:02:46]What are your thoughts?

[00:02:49]Yeah, I mean pretty clearly the Supreme Court wanted to deliver this decision earlier rather than later. A lot of times with the big decisions we wait until June to see them come through. I think the conservative justices wanted to decide this case earlier so that there'd be more time before the fall elections to change the district lines and effectively help the Republicans for the fall elections. It's hard to make those moves between now and then in states where they've already had primaries or voting's already underway in their primary elections. For instance in states like Mississippi and Georgia, they would have to kind of peel back the results of the the primary elections have people run in the new districts and redraw new districts run the primary election and get that all done before the fall.

[00:03:43]That's a lot to ask and and I think it's going to be too much in a bunch of those states, but there are lots of southern states where they haven't had their primary election yet and I think in those states you're very likely to see them change their districts and certainly in Louisiana. I think they're going to redraw the two districts that were at the heart of the litigation in the Kelly case.

[00:04:04]And so then I think someone this morning I heard called this a race to the bottom because what what then?

[00:04:13]It let's say Louisiana because this case revolved around Louisiana. They go ahead. We've already seen Texas.

[00:04:20]We've seen California. We've seen Virginia even though that was held up even after a vote.

[00:04:28]And and of course there was a conversation at least in 2024 about whether Illinois would even re you know re address let's say this particular issue. So what what have we opened up here?

[00:04:45]Yeah, the Kelly decision makes all of that much much worse if you can believe it. I think it was already a race to the bottom where the two parties were gerrymandering on a repeated basis to try to outdo each other and gain an edge for the midterm election.

[00:05:01]The Kelly decision really takes all the brakes off of gerrymandering.

[00:05:05]At least in the southern states where you had significant African-American and other minority populations. The Voting Rights Act always put a restriction on how far those states could go in terms of gerrymandering because the VRA protected those districts from being undone. That's gone now. So I think those Republican states see a lot of opportunity in undoing about a dozen districts majority minority districts between now and the fall and those are seats that would swing from the Democratic side to the Republican side. If they get that all done between now and the fall, they have a chance to hold on to the House of Representatives even if the Democrats really have a landslide election where voters vote overwhelmingly for the D's instead of the R's and that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate to see gerrymandering by both sides go this far, but I think both sides want to win and they see this as necessary for the fall. Yeah, who who doesn't want to win? You know, but that's the thing is that both sides want to win. So then they just keep doing this back and forth here.

[00:06:10]Give people a little bit of history. I mean we kind of fast-tracked into the the current status, but why was the Voting Rights Act created? It it is looked at as a landmark legislation. So why was it created?

[00:06:28]The Voting Rights Act was passed in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement right after a really violent reaction by local authorities to the Civil Rights protests in in Selma, Alabama. And so it was really a response to the systematic disenfranchisement of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South.

[00:06:52]Something had to be done. The Civil Rights Movement created an impetus for a really important social change that I think today we all look back and are happy that that happened. The Voting Rights Act transformed by changing the law the politics of America and really reintegrated African-Americans into our our our voting process, our democratic process.

[00:07:17]I view that as incredibly important and it's the Voting Rights Act itself kind of evolved over the course of its lifetime.

[00:07:27]It started out as merely removing barriers for African-Americans to vote at all just provide access to the the voting booth, but over the course of the history of the Voting Rights Act it changed.

[00:07:41]It grew and evolved with congressional approval and court implementation to guarantee some representation for racial minorities and that section of the Voting Rights Act that was amended in 1982. That section is what was really basically struck down yesterday in Kelly. So those protections that guarantee some representation under certain set of circumstances for racial minorities. That section was taken down yesterday. And even though you know people make a lot of President Trump's ability to um you know select several of the justices that we see now on the Supreme Court.

[00:08:24]They haven't always voted very I mean he he has made a lot of comments when they have not voted in his favor or on things that he was strong felt strongly about.

[00:08:38]He he we took a press conference yesterday where the reporters actually were the ones to tell President Trump that this decision had come down and he said who who I haven't seen it yet. Who who did it favor? And he they said Republicans. He said oh well wonderful. So talk a little bit about how this fits into the narrative of of this Supreme Court. Like what what is the makeup of this Supreme Court? What does it say about this Supreme Court?

[00:09:09]Yeah, well obviously Trump expects loyalty from his appointees and I think all he cares about in terms of Voting Rights Law is that it helps his side and helps him. And that's not uncommon among politicians. They care about winning as you said.

[00:09:26]So that's the way it that's the lens through which they see these kinds of things. It hasn't always been the case that Republican appointees help the Republicans in election law the area where I study and research.

[00:09:38]In fact uh often the kind of party of the judge doesn't really map on to where they come out on election law, but increasingly over time and more recently it's become more and more predictable. And this court in particular the Roberts Court uh, that has the three Trump appointees.

[00:09:58]Um, they are pretty predictable when it comes to these kinds of election things.

[00:10:02]Um, and the Democratic appointees are pretty predictable as well. Uh, they have very clearly staked out ideological views on these kinds of, uh, matters.

[00:10:11]And the Roberts Court has been particularly conservative, um, when it comes to these kinds of issues of election law, whether it's campaign finance, voting, uh, voting rights, uh, election rules, all of those things. Uh, it they have a pretty clear kind of deregulatory direction. So, I wasn't surprised to see, uh, the Roberts Court come out the way it did in this case.

[00:10:34]And it's clearly part of a larger, uh, program that I think the conservative justices have of withdrawing the courts from the political process. They don't really like regulation. And at least right now, the way that kind of cashes out in the political process is it helps Republicans who control a lot of the state governments. Mhm. So, do you think Illinois or, you know, heavily Democratic states, but but let's stick with Illinois, will try to respond to this and, you know, um, with with some type of speed. Or do you think that, especially in a state that's already gerrymandered to favor Democrats, um, that it would tow the line and let maybe another state that that needs a little more balance or help, uh, for that party, um, start to act?

[00:11:32]I don't think there's any doubt the Republican side will try to take advantage of Kael A and gerrymander further because there's a lot of districts where they can get more seats.

[00:11:41]I think the Democrats would love to respond to that and try to negate those advantages that they've gained under Kael A. Um, I'm not sure that there's a lot of room on the kind of national map to do that. Democrats have come pretty close to maxing out what they can get from gerrymandering. There There might be a few districts here or there. Um, but they've kind of pushed where they can. There are more legal obstacles in the way of the Democrats in the states that they control. They've overcome some of those in states like California and Virginia. Um, but it's a little more complicated for their side. Here in Illinois, the Democrats could redistrict again. Generally, there's not much of an appetite at the state level for re-redistricting except when it becomes this sort of arms race war. Um, but here, as you as you sort of suggest, I'm not sure if they can draw more districts. They might try. Uh, the removal of the Voting Rights Act protections does give the Democrats a little bit more latitude.

[00:12:36]But unlike the Republicans, those are their districts. So, um, they would make their own incumbents quite unhappy if they redrew those districts.

[00:12:44]Uh, racial minorities tend to vote in favor of the Democrats generally. And removing those districts would probably be unpopular with racial minorities. So, it's unclear that the Democrats have a lot more that they can do on their side, uh, and whether this decision really helps them too much the way it helps the Republicans. It'll be very interesting to see. And again, all of this movement, uh, in in whatever states do, um, act, uh, as a result of this decision in a midterm year, um, what the results will be come November. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:13:20]Thank you.

[00:13:22]It's 1:47, everyone. Give us 2 minutes and we'll be back.