Anat and I kicked off this week’s “Meeting the Moment” chat with a mini-film group discussion (everyone should watch “One Battle After Another” and “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”) before delving into the horrors of the new Roberts Court term. You’d hardly know the Court had been out of session to begin with given the flurry of pro-Trump shadow docket rulings this summer—rulings so plainly illegitimate that dozens of federal judges objected to them in the New York Times.
With Louisiana v. Callais, Roberts could finally fulfill his lifelong dream of killing the Voting Rights Act (see my chat with Lisa Graves for more on that history) by striking down Section 2, which protects against racially discriminatory maps. A new report by Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter has the facts you need to know about that case.
Striking down Section 2 would take us right back to Jim Crow in the sense that the South will be able to elect people to the House with far fewer votes than the rest of the country. They will have representation in the House in proportion to the number of people who live there, but voters of color will have their power diluted such that they won’t have a say in who wins.
Ahead of Saturday’s “No Kings Day” protests (find one to attend near you here), the oral arguments in Callais were a reminder that the Roberts Court has been acting as an unelected king for the last 20 years.
