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This is Democracy Watch. Mark, we've done almost 400 episodes of this series. None has been more important than this one right here. Can you talk about the Louisiana case that is right now at the US Supreme Court and the impact that this might have on congressional maps and the House moving forward?
All right, everyone. This is a five alarm fire. Okay. What we are watching right now is potentially the dismantling of the remaining portions of the Federal Voting Rights Act. By the way, the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act is coming up later next week. Uh so it is the timing of this is unbelievably disgraceful.
But the US Supreme Court heard a case last term out of the state of Louisiana that involved the fact that Louisiana's map when it passed its congressional map created one black opportunity district. A bunch of plaintiffs sued, including those represented by my law firm and won. And the federal court said that in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act, a second black opportunity district needed to be created. Louisiana, unlike Alabama, which you and I have talked about in other videos, Louisiana actually complied with that order and drew a new map with two uh black opportunity districts. A bunch of white plaintiffs then brought that case to the US Supreme Court saying that this was a violation of the Constitution.
And the Supreme Court heard this case and we waited till the last day of the of the of the term waiting for an outcome. We didn't get one. Instead, the Supreme Court said it was going to set it for a hearing. And now they have told us what it is they want reheard. And uh the question they want the parties to argue now is quote whether the state's intentional creation of a second majority minority congressional district violates the 14th or 15th amendments to the US Constitution. That is shorthand for the US Supreme Court is looking to see whether or not section two of the voting rights act violates the constitution. This would be an earthquake beyond any earthquake we have seen in recent decades involving voting rights in this country.
So how many districts in this country rely on section two of the voting rights act? And the question I'm that I'm getting at here is what would it mean if they overturned if they gutted the Voting Rights Act, gutted section two of the Voting Rights Act, and made it so that there were no opportunity districts, no black majority districts in this country.
Brian, so there's no precise count of how many uh uh voting rights act districts under section 2 there are because it applies nationwide and therefore states don't have to announce we are creating a district under the voting rights act, right? This comes up uh usually when there is a legal challenge. What I can tell you this is that there are dozens and dozens of of districts right now that are majority minority, whether they are majority black or majority Latino or in some places uh majority uh um Asian-American. So, we're talking about a lot a lot of districts. I mean, we're talking about several dozen districts that if the Republicans decided to extrapolate this out, they could try to unravel. And by the way, that's just the majority minority districts, right? I mean, if they go forward with this theory that that any use of race, any cognizant of cognizance of race, you could see a lot of litigation, by the way, on both sides. I mean, you know, I I'm looking at districts right now that Republicans have drawn and it sure looks like they're protecting white voters. Yeah. You know, why why why why uh why is that allowed?
So, so look, this is a very big issue in a before a court that has shown a reckless disregard to to voting rights and to minority rights in this country. So, it is something your whole audience needs to pay attention to. Democracy dockets whole audience needs to pay attention to. And frankly, the legacy media, you know, I perused the legacy media before we did this video. It is not getting the attention there that it deserves, right? Especially given the fact that look what we're seeing happen in Texas and in response to that California right now is just a small microcosm of this because yes Texas could try to grab five seats if they further gerrymander their state we can try to cancel that out with Texas but if they're able to gut section two of the Voting Rights Act we're not talking about five seats for Republicans we're talking about the elimination of full swaths of Democratic representation in Louisiana in Mississippi in in states across the country where this last vested of representation is is hinged on section two of the voting rights act.
And so in that instance, I guess the the broader question here is how and you may not be able to answer this. This may be part of a a broader discussion that we engage in. But how do Democrats contend if all of a sudden we've deployed our weapons in California and hopefully Illinois and grabbed a few seats there and maybe there's one seat to get in Maryland and maybe in a couple of cycles my home state of New York. There's New York. Um although the rules are a little bit more convoluted in New York and it may take two two cycles to be able to get there, but but that notwithstanding, how do you contend with when you're not talking about a couple seats now, you're talking about dozens of seats that Republicans are able to pick up, right?
And and I think you make a really important point. So, let's just take um majority uh black districts. Uh there are more than two dozen uh seats right now that are majority black and they are mostly in the south. You know, Tennessee has one, Mississippi has one. Obviously, Alabama currently has two, Louisiana currently has two, Georgia has two, has three, rather. I think I could go on and on. South Carolina has one. What do you What now? Every one of those districts right now is held by a Democrat. Okay. So, let's just round it off and say there are 25 districts that right now are majority uh black and they're all held by Democrats. If you remove the Voting Rights Act as a backs stop and say that none of those districts are now legally required and Republicans can just partisan gerrymander to their heart's content, you can see what start what starts to happen, right? They start to zero out the the districts in Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, you know, you go on and on and list all the states. Florida, you know, all of these states and the and and and it it both is a tragedy and we should start with that for black voters, right? It is it is it is to deprive them of their their their federal voting rights. Um but on a partisan basis, to your point, it would also have cataclysmic effects, right? You would you would see the unlocking of partisan gerrymanders like we have never seen before. Texas, by the way, might come back into session, right? Like I mean, some of what Texas is doing right now is partisan jerrymandering. Now, I think they're going to get sued for violating the Voting Rights Act, for violating the Constitution. But if you remove any obstacle that puts in place by section of the Voting Rights Act, you know, that that becomes a bigger thing.
Now, what do Democrats do? Well, look, you know, I think that we're not at that point where we need to start talking about what how Democrats handle uh uh the the if if section 2 goes down. I think right now we need to be focused on making the best arguments in the Supreme Court as to why that would be wrong both a matter as a matter of law as a matter of constitutional law and also, you know, that little thing called star decisis that they all pledged that they belong that they agreed with. Remember the whole precedent upon precedent stuff we heard at the confirmation hearings super precedent. Well, I mean, you know, if there is anything that should be en should enjoy uh uh the strength of president, it would be the Voting Rights Act. I mean, this is a law that was passed in 1965 has been upheld and applied by the Supreme Court dozens upon dozens upon dozens of times. And unlike unlike some other areas where they have really grabbed and and and overturned president, there really hasn't been a controversy here until now. You know, like like there wasn't, you know, even even Justice the Chief Justice Roberts in his Shelby County decision striking down section five of the Voting Rights Act, even he went to great pains to say that nothing in that decision affected the nationwide application of section two of the Voting Rights Act. So, this is kind of coming like as a bolt out of out of out of thin air that could really scramble the law, could scramble politics in a lot of ways.
So, right now, our attention needs to be we don't let that happen. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be fighting Texas in those other states that you just mentioned. You know, you and I were early to this party. You and I were in favor of Democrats responding in kind before it was cool. You know, now everybody's on that on that. But remember the earlier videos where you and I were kind of like a little trepid little trepidation like this may piss some people off, but I think Democrats and in blue states need to do this. Well, now it's cool. But but our fight here in this case in Louisiana needs to be to prevent the Supreme Court from doing it.
Well, I think I think we should and could be fighting on two fronts. I think that you're exactly right in terms of taking the fight that's right in front of us right now. But I think this is also a a kick in the ass for all of these governors and state legislators um right now across the country who are deciding whether or not they want to engage in this race to the bottom that is gerrymandering because the reality is that we don't have that many weapons at our disposal. And so we need to we need to uh uh get accustomed to the fact that right now if they deploy that we may not have a way to respond. So, at least give ourselves the opportunity to get in the majority, get back in office, pass legislation to shore up what are very clearly some uh a very precarious hold on the Voting Rights Act, to shore up some of these laws, um, and most importantly pass a ban on partisan gerrymandering before they have the opportunity to entrench their own power.
If we allow Republicans to to gain power here because maybe we're we're not um we're not looking again to engage in engage in this race to the bottom that is partisan gerrymandering and let's just wait and see what they do. If they're able to gain the majority and we're not able to pass a ban on partisan gerrymandering and then they strip section two of the Voting Rights Act and we're not able to be successful in court, then I don't know that we'll have that much recourse. And so we need to do whatever we can while we still have options on the table to get into the majority and pass a nationwide ban on gerrymandering. But of course, the way to do that is to not unilaterally disarm. And so if we have to jerrymander so that we can respond in kind, so that we can get into office and finally pass nationwide prohibitions, that has to be our priority here. And so I hope these people that are um worried about the optics or or don't want to engage in this stuff or it feels icky disabuse yourselves of that because the the window is shrinking to be able to to fix this here. And if the Supreme Court engages in this worst case scenario situation, then we are very quickly losing the tools that we have to even be able to play the game at all anymore.
Yeah, you're exactly right about that. And and the window is literally shrinking. You know, every day that goes by, we are one day closer to the 2026 midterm elections. And there will come a point where it will be too late for 2026. And I'm afraid the momentum will then be lost even to do something for 2028. So, so here is the thing. It is not enough for Democrats to say that we cannot bring uh a knife to a gunfight. If the other side brings pistols, we need to bring machine guns. Like like it is not enough. I I'm all for what what Governor Nuomo in California and the other Democratic governors you mentioned say they're going to do which is essentially to match in some sense what Republicans are up to. I think we need to exceed it. I mean I've you and I have talked about this. I've written about this in democracy docket like we if they are going to jerrymander five seats. I think Democratic governors should reexamine their maps and within the laws of their their states and all that they should find 15 seats to take away from Republicans. they find 30 seats to take to challenge against Republicans because because the problem is if we're just always just like matching where they are, they will just keep upping the ante. We there's no there's no there's no deterrent effect for them. If all they have to do is is contend with a possible match by Democrats. Correct. We have to show them that we are willing to be more aggressive than they are because democracy depends on it.
Because because right now Donald Trump is an authoritarian in the White House. He and and John Thun and and Mike Johnson are destroying our democracy. They are going to challenge free and fair elections. Mark my words. You know, you and I have done episodes on it before. I know we'll do more in the future, but they are going to put obstacles in place for prevent people from voting. They're going to be uh uh they're going to be trying to subvert the outcome of elections. And if we make that easier for them, we make that easier for them because they are uh while they're gerrymandering and doing all this stuff, we're on our soap box speaking about the high road, you know, then then we're we're we're going to be doomed and we're going to turn the high road into frankly a suicide pack for democracy and we cannot let that happen.
Last question here, Mark. What is the timeline in terms of when we can expect these arguments to happen in front of the Supreme Court and when we can expect a decision from the Supreme Court?
Okay. So, really good question. So, normally uh the Supreme Court's term begins the beginning of October. Decisions by uh the end of uh June of the following year, right? We're all familiar with that that dance. The arguments start in October. There are arguments October, November, December, maybe a few into January, maybe a one-off late in the spring, and then we get the decisions kind of as the term goes along with the big decisions. And one would imagine this would be a big decision coming towards the end. Now, for people wondering, is that in time for 2026? Uh, the answer is it might be. I mean, it depends where in that calendar it happens.
Now, I want to give people the one historical footnote or one historical analogy that's going to let let the blood drain out of your your your your head right now, which is that in 200 uh and uh in 2009, the US Supreme Court did something very similar in a campaign finance case that you may have heard of called Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission. And what happened is that case had been argued uh uh in October or November I think of the prior year. At the end of the term in 2009 they said uh we don't have a decision. We want it reargued. They wanted it reargued on a broader question that ultimately invalidated as everybody knows the ban on independent expenditures by corporations. Um but what it did is it set that hearing for that reargument in September. So, it actually didn't wait until uh the normal term to begin. It actually did a one-day argument, like a one-off argument in the Supreme Court. I think it was on September 9th of that year. And the decision as a result came really early. The decision was uh I believe January 10th of 2010. So, it is always possible that the Supreme Court looking at the fact that it's an election year, which I assume is what motivated them in Citizens United, right? They wanted to get the decision out early in the 2010 cycle as they could. It is always possible the Supreme Court, particularly the conservatives here who don't want an opportunity to let another election cycle go by, that they either pull the argument out of the normal schedule and put it in September, or they make it an early argument October and then get a decision out earlier. So, that's all speculation. That's just a little historical context from someone who's been around this for a very long time and uh you know and uh uh and wants to give the audience the full uh point of view. But I can promise everyone Democracy Docket will let you know as soon as a date and I'm sure Brian you and I on by then hopefully above our 400th episode. Uh you know uh uh we had a you know we had a cake once. We did I think after one after episode 100 we had a cake and then then then we say by the way then like Brian just started being like oh yeah Elias is just back right no more got a text right sometime after our 400th episode I assume we will be back to to as soon as there is breaking news on that front.
Well look I I I I think I can speak for you Mark in saying that this is the whole game right now I mean this is the most important issue in the country and I know that it's very we it feels very weedsy because it's a a rearguing of a court case in Louisiana that's back in front of the Supreme Court. It it's it's actually very simple. It's the elimination of these opportunity districts, these black majority districts, these minority majority districts where Democrats across the country have representation. If they're able to gut that, then we may see a redrawing of maps across the country, redrawing these these uh these black Democrats or Hispanic Democrats out of their seats across the country, which may lead to dozens of Democrats losing their opportunity to have representation in their states. And so this is an especially important issue. To Mark's point, he's going to be covering this on Democracy Docket. Highly recommend for everybody who's watching right now to stay on top of this issue, which I would argue is the most important issue that we're contending with right now as we head toward 2026, as we head toward this next Supreme Court cycle. Uh to to stay on top of this, please subscribe to Mark's YouTube channel, Democracy Docket. I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Also, if you're not yet subscribed to this channel, I'll be covering that as well on this channel. So, please make sure to subscribe to both of them. It doesn't cost you anything to do. It's a great way to support independent media. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen. I'm Mark Elias. This is Democracy Watch. [Music]