Transcription
This is Democracy Watch. Mark, we have spoken about a case that is so important that's coming up in the US Supreme Court, and that is this case as it relates to Louisiana's redistricting their maps, uh, that may or may not completely gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And so every black majority district, every opportunity district in this country, in Florida, in Louisiana, in Alabama, in Texas, all of those rely on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act being upheld.
Right now, the Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments on Section 2 of the, uh, of the Voting Rights Act, and those arguments begin on October 15th. So, it's early in that term. The worry, of course, is that if the Supreme Court does decide to gut Section 2, that could mean all of these Republican states can yet again redraw these maps and draw out all of these black majority districts and Hispanic majority districts that are in compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
We now have an update as far as this case is concerned in Louisiana. Can you explain what just happened?
Yeah, this is a full-blown, uh, uh, crisis for democracy that everyone needs to pay attention to. Republicans are shameless around the country, but the gutlessness of the Republicans in Louisiana may now exceed even that of, of the states that we usually talk about. The state of Louisiana was sued by my law firm and others for enacting a congressional map that created one, uh, black, uh, opportunity district when the, the law clearly required them to draw two. After they were sued and lost, they then did the right thing and they reconvened their legislature and they drew a new map, and that map was legally compliant. It created a second black opportunity district. The, the, a group of white or at least non-minority plaintiffs brought a lawsuit that went to the US Supreme Court. We, we all expected the Supreme Court to summarily dismiss it. Instead, they took the case. But the state of Louisiana did the right thing. It stood up and defended its map.
Well, now that the Supreme Court wants to rehear that case and wants the fate of Section 2 to be called into question, and now that the Trump administration is no longer defending Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Donald Trump has instructed his Department of Justice to do what past presidents would never do, which is to walk away from a federal law. Walk away from defending a federal law that's been on the books since 1965. They have walked away from it, and the state of Louisiana has now followed suit. That's right. The state of Louisiana is now taking the position that the map they drew, the map that they voted for, is now in should be struck down as a violation of Section of the of the Constitution, and that Section of the Voting Rights Act should be obliterated. This is an absolutely disgraceful moment, uh, for the history of Louisiana. It is an absolute five-alarm fire for democracy, and it is something we all need to be paying attention to.
How can the DOJ go into court and not uphold the law, like, as it's written? How, how can they take the position that the law that they're charged to enforce is somehow the opposite position that they're going to take?
Look, this is one of the scandals of the Trump administration that the legacy media has not paid attention to. I mean, I will be arguing a different case, uh, later this year, uh, involving a campaign finance law that has been on the books since 1974. Right. Okay. Which the Supreme Court upheld in 1976 and then upheld again in the, in, uh, uh, in, uh, uh, in early, in the early 2000s. So this law has been defended by the Department of Justice over and over again, as has Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. I mean, this, the Department of Justice has probably litigated, I don't know, 50, 60, uh, cases in the Supreme Court in one posture or another, uh, involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And now all of a sudden, in both of these cases, the, the Trump Justice Department has said, you know what, uh, Supreme Court, we think this is no longer good law. We think it should be struck down as unconstitutional. It is absolutely dereliction of duty. It is the kind of thing that in a normal world would be a front-page scandal. But of course, the legacy media doesn't do anything like that. Now, it's left to people like you and I to cover that.
Democracy Docket, the news outlet I followed, has been covering this. We actually broke the news about this Louisiana, uh, case. Uh, uh, and it is something you and I have been covering, uh, from the beginning and now, uh, continuing to cover. But this should be of concern to everyone who cares about democracy, everyone who cares about voting rights, but really anyone who cares about the rule of law. This really is the biggest case in the country.
You did mention that you were the first to break the story. That's how I found out about it. Again, to, to Mark's exact point. If you're not yet signed up for Democracy Docket, I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. If you were looking for any news outlet, any independent outlet to support, let it be this one.
Um, Mark, more broadly as it relates to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, can you speak about the importance of the Supreme Court deciding to put this on their calendar in on October 15th, which is right at the beginning of this Supreme Court term?
Yeah, really important point, Brian, which is that they have scheduled this for the second week of their term, like right at the very beginning. And we are obviously entering into a midterm elections. We're obviously entering into a midterm elections in which Republicans have shown a shameless willingness to re-jerrymander maps to their advantage. And the idea that the Supreme Court could strike down potentially, if they do so, the Voting Rights Act and affect dozens and dozens, scores of, of congressional districts around the country, um, would now no longer be protected from being redrawn, uh, and black voters being disenfranchised, you know, would be just terrifying. And the, the fact that they have this case argued early in the term would mean that they could decide it in January. You know, remember Citizens United was a decision handed down by the Supreme Court after reargument, after it was reargued early in the term, uh, and that decision was handed down on January 10th, uh, of, uh, of 2010, an election year. And what it meant was that in that election, in that midterm election, big money poured in, uh, in to have a really big impact. Democrats lost, uh, lost a ton of seats in that midterm election. And the prospect that the Supreme Court could tinker with or could dismantle entirely Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in early in 2026, and then watch Republican legislators around the country, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, you know, you name it, Texas again, kind of hard to believe, you know, uh, uh, you know, would be terrifying. And so that is the reason why my law firm, we're fighting this in court. It's the reason why, uh, I'm speaking out about it so loudly and so alarmingly with you and, uh, on, uh, on Democracy Docket, because this could be a really big deal for the future of the midterm elections.
Yeah. Can you, can you explain specifically what you mean like in terms of why should folks care about this? We're watching these redistricting fights happen right now where Donald Trump is trying to get Texas to give him five more seats. California is responding by offering a map that has five seats of their own, plus shores up a few Democratic seats in that state. Now, we've got Missouri and Indiana and Florida Republicans looking to do the same. So, of course, Wes Moore and JB Pritzker in Maryland and Illinois are looking to reciprocate. And so, what would this mean? What would it look like if Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was gutted? Like, what would happen the next day, basically?
Yeah. So look, the thing that we are not talking about when we talk about the states that Donald Trump has targeted is we're not talking about states in the Deep South. Why? Because South Carolina can't do away with the, the remaining Democratic districts because they are they were drawn to comply with federal law that prohibits discrimination against black voters in redistricting. Well, if that law, Section 2, goes away, South Carolina would be on the table to redistrict. You know, he's not asking Louisiana or Alabama to redistrict. Why? Because those districts, as a result of litigation in my law firm and others, broad, those districts that are right now have Democratic, uh, uh, representatives, they are they are districts in which black voters are able to exercise political power. Well, if you take away the statute that gives black voters that political power, you could conceivably have no Democratic districts in those states. In Texas, the limiting factor on what Texas was able to do. Now, we believe that they, they crossed the line and that they violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, but if Section 2 of the Voting Rights didn't exist, just imagine what Texas would do, what Florida would do, what, what any number of other states that have significant black populations, uh, that are controlled by Republicans would do. It could, it could set back the cause of black voting rights, you know, for, for a generation. It would also have immediate partisan impacts that would play into the hands of what Donald Trump is trying to do in order to make it almost impossible for the Republican party to lose the midterm elections.
So, let's talk about kind of, uh, what the solution here might be so that we actually offer some, some productive advice moving forward. Obviously, the bulwark against this is to have folks in place who aren't going to be perfectly willing to listen to Donald Trump when he calls for orders, these redraws in the event that Section 2 is gutted. So, so what needs to happen in the states in the immediate future to basically serve as that bulwark?
Yeah. So, a couple of things. First of all, Democrats in states they control, they need to fight hard. Okay. And you and I have talked about this, and we've seen, we've seen the beginning of that, but we need more of it. We need to keep up the pressure that Democrats in states that where they control the process, they need to they need to, um, uh, they need to play by the same rules that Republicans are playing by with respect to mid-cycle redistricting. Not necessarily eviscerating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, but with respect to redistricting. We've seen Gavin Newsom do that, and hopefully we'll see others.
Number two, we need all of you watching this video to be educated and informed and activated. And we need your friends and your family and your co-workers and your, uh, and your customers and the people who you go to bridge club with and the people who you, uh, see on Saturday afternoon, um, at the bowling league. We need you to activate all of them. And the easiest way for you to do that is to share Brian Tyler Cohen's content. You know, the thing about Brian is he is covering the democracy issues day in and day out, several times a day, in a more compelling way and in a more insightful way than anyone else. And I mean that by anyone else. And so you need to take this channel and you need to share it with your friends. You need to subscribe. You need to hit the bell because that will help the algorithm not just, uh, uh, boost this content, but also serve this content to you and to others. So I want you to share this video. I want you to share this channel. I want you to subscribe to this channel. I want you to like this video and every other video on this channel.
And the other thing else you need to know about Brian is he is not just building his channel. He is helping a whole cohort of creators. He is helping people like me. I, Democracy Docket's channel went from non-existent to now having more than 500,000 subscribers. You can check that out also. But Brian helped do that. He is involved in an organization that is doing tremendously important work to lift up smaller creators and help make them bigger creators, and they will be talking about this case and other, uh, challenges to democracy. So, we need the entire pro-democracy, uh, independent media ecosystem to lift up. And there is no better champion for it than Brian Tyler Cohen. He didn't think this was going to be my answer. He thought I was going to say something else. But I'm here to give you the straight truth every single day. And if I thought the straight truth was something else, I would tell you to do that other thing. But the most immediate thing you can do right now is to support this channel and Brian's work and the work of the other creators that he lifts up. I'm sure he can provide some kind of link or something to who some of them are. And along the way, you can give Democracy Docket a look as well.
Well, I really appreciate that and again, highly recommend for those who are watching, if you are not yet getting your news from Democracy Docket, I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description. Support, uh, fearless independent journalism, and there's no better outlet than Democracy Docket. So again, links right here on the screen and also in the post description. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen. I'm Mark Elias. This is Democracy Watch.
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