The Voting Rights Act helped stem some of the racism alive and well in America.

SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act and sent southern states sprinting to gerrymander even further. Within hours, Southern states staged an assault on majority-black districts, threatening to send black representation back to Reconstruction. Florida passed a new congressional map and cited the ruling by name. Ron DeSantis axed the popular Fair Districts Amendments, which prohibited racial gerrymandering. The result: Florida could end up with a map that gives the GOP four more seats, putting the state’s delegation at 24-4, Republican to Democrat. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry declared a state of emergency to suspend its primary election that’s already under way. People already have mail-in ballots in hand. Not because of a storm. Not a logistical issue or a public health emergency. It was so they could redraw the maps before anyone could vote. The emergency of Black representation in government. Alabama called a special session. Tennessee called a special session. Mississippi called a special session. South Carolina put Jim Clyburn’s seat directly in the crosshairs. That was all in 24 hours. Even those of us who saw this ruling coming couldn’t see this: Republicans came prepared. There was practically no time between the decision and the action. This ruling was a starting gun. So let’s talk about what Callais actually did, because the headline doesn’t quite capture just how damaging it is. The court didn’t technically strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial gerrymandering. They just made it basically impossible to enforce. It’s as good as dead. A little history for context: When congress passed the VRA in 1965, you had to prove intent to discriminate in order to prove a violation. Which made it nearly impossible to win because either you’d have to be able to read a politician’s mind, or hope they left a paper trail. It’s only recently that a politician would be stupid enough to do that, but I digress. Congress saw the problem there and changed the law in 1982 to get rid of the intent issue. You just had to prove the results were discriminatory. If a map diluted the power of black voters, that was enough. That’s what this court just undid. So now, any state can draw a map that eliminates black representation entirely, and as long as they claim partisanship, they’re good to go. Even in the south, where race and party are inextricably linked that parsing that is basically impossible. Justice Kagan said it in her dissent: Section 2 is now “all but a dead letter.” It gets worse. In 2019, the court ruled it couldn’t touch partisan gerrymandering, either. They basically said “it’s a political thing, not our problem.” Now, racial gerrymandering is effectively legal. Partisan gerrymandering was already legal. So all gerrymandering is legal. The last guardrail is gone. Let’s look at every state that moved in those 24 hours: Louisiana. Alabama. Tennessee. South Carolina. Florida. They’re not just targeting Democratic seats, they’re going after black seats. Every single one of these measures is aimed specifically at eliminating majority-black districts. 35 out of 40 representatives of color in the south were elected in those districts. To say nothing of the fallout: we could be looking at white candidates winning 15 seats currently held by black members of Congress. Some projections put it as high as 19 seats flipped. You’d have to go all the way back to the end of Reconstruction to find a drop in black representation that steep. This is exactly why the Voting Rights Act was written in the first place. It was a direct response to Jim Crow laws these same states imposed, defended and enforced. The VRA was the only thing holding them back. It was Congress saying, “We know what you do when left to your own devices.” Last week, they got their devices back. And within hours, these states were up to their old tricks, sprinting to disenfranchise black voters. They’ve been waiting 60 years for the opportunity, and the courts just handed it to them.