Is the Supreme Court About to Hand the House to the Republicans?

Welcome to the second Message Box Mailbag

Welcome to Message Box Mailbag #2. Theoretically, I should come up with another, better name for this feature, but maybe simple and self-explanatory is actually the way to go.

Another great set of questions this week — far more than I can answer. Like last week, I tried to pick questions that reflected consistent themes and covered what many of you asked about.

As a reminder, these will come every Saturday as a special feature for paid subscribers. Subscribe today to read these posts and ask anything you want.

Don’t forget to post your questions for next week’s mailbag in the comments section of this post.

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Rodney Minott:

This New York Times article on the upcoming Supreme Court ruling over the Voting Rights Act paints a profoundly disturbing picture. It appears likely to upend years of progress — and could seriously undermine efforts to take back Congress and win key state and local races.

I’d welcome a clear-minded perspective on this — and thoughts on what lies ahead. Are we doomed if the ruling strikes down this critical piece of the Voting Rights Act?

Answer:

This is one of those issues where I try to land between sugarcoating and pure doomerism, but to be clear: if the Court strikes down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, it will be bad for democracy, voting rights, civil rights, minority representation, and the Democratic Party. The ruling would allow Republicans to eliminate almost every Democratic district in the Deep South.

For those who don’t know, Section 2 bans voting practices that discriminate based on race, including drawing districts to dilute the voting power of minority populations. In practice, this has led to the creation of majority-minority districts. Eliminating Section 2 would allow Republicans to gerrymander these districts out of existence in places like Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana — all very Republican states with significant Black populations. The ruling would also allow Republicans to engage in even more aggressive gerrymandering in Texas, Florida, and Georgia.

This is all terrible, but I want to offer some caveats.