EP 931 Is the Supreme Court Going to Gut the Voting Rights Act and Affect the 2026 Mid-Terms?

There is a crucially significant case now before the U.S. Supreme Court which may be decided within days or months.  The timing will determine whether its impact is felt in this Congressional cycle (2026) or 2028.  It deals with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark civil rights statute that was re-authorized by Congress nearly by acclamation in 2006.  Even Chief Justice John Roberts, no friend of the law, said at the time that while the Court struck down Section 5 of the Act in 2013 (a provision that required states to get approval from the federal Department of Justice in order for certain states and local jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to redistrict) that Section 2, prohibiting racial gerrymandering, would still be on the books to protect the rights of those populations.  If Section 2 protections are gone, the Voting Rights Act is, in effect, gutted and unworkable as envisioned and has operated over the last sixty years.  Between 12-19 Congressional seats in the Deep South, now represented by Black legislators, could be absorbed into White conservative districts.  To discuss this possibility is David Daley, America’s leading expert on gerrymandering, a Senior Fellow at FairVote (fairvote.org) and author of a number of books on the subject, including his latest “Antidemocratic:  Inside the Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections.”

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