'If You Can Keep It': The Supreme Court And The Voting Rights Act

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Last week in a six to three ruling along ideological lines, the Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That's the landmark civil rights-era law designed to prevent racial discrimination in voting. The law was passed to unravel Jim Crow-era policies that limited or blocked Black Americans' access to the ballot. The decision in Louisiana v. Calais struck down Louisiana's congressional map as a, quote, unconstitutional gerrymander. But the ruling goes a lot further. It effectively rewrites the rule for how the Voting Rights Act can be used to challenge discriminatory maps, making it much harder to do so going forward. The latest in a string of rulings rendering the Voting Rights Act all but moot. I'm Jen White.

And I'm Todd Zwillick. You're listening to the 1A podcast today on if you can keep it redistricting across the U.S. and how this hugely consequential ruling changes in election season already in full swing. Later on in the hour, we're going to hear from Congressman Cleo Fields, the Democrat who represents Louisiana's 6th congressional district. That's the majority black district that reaches from the northwest corner down to the center of Louisiana. With the Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana's governor issued an executive order to suspend the state's May 16th primary and to redraw the map in a way that could eliminate this majority black district entirely. But first, a quick break. We'll be back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to the 1A podcast. You're listening to our weekly series if you can keep it. Let's get right into our conversation and meet our guests. Joining us from Sedona, Arizona is Kareem Creighton. He's vice president of the Washington Office of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. He's also a law and political science scholar who tracks how redistricting shapes minority representation in the U.S. Karim, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. And also with us, Carrie Levine, editor-in-chief of Votebeat, that's a non-profit newsroom covering elections and voting across the U.S. She joins us in studio in Washington. Carrie, welcome back to the program. Thank you. And thanks so much for our.

having me. Carrie, summarize last week's court ruling and the decision of the majority opinion of the court. Right. So the ruling was about the Louisiana congressional map, as you said, and it specifically was about a key provision of the Voting Rights Act Section 2, which has long empowered voters and candidates of color. And so the long-term impacts of this could be profound in terms of the representation of communities of color across the country. This has long been something that was a tool that could be used to empower those voters and to create room for those candidates who represent those communities. And so the prediction, several analyses have predicted that the number of, for instance, black representatives in Congress will dramatically go down because

of this ruling, though I think there's still some unpredictable things about how it's going to play out. The court in this case didn't outright strike down the provision, which I think some people had anticipated as a possibility. But it did say that Section 2 is violated, quote, only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the state intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race. And so that's what Samuel Alito wrote. That's a much higher bar. And in a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that, today's decision renders Section 2, all but a dead letter. And so that's kind of where that decision leaves us. And Kareem, just walk us through what Section 2 actually did and what it will no longer do after this ruling.

Sure. Well, Section 2, by many, has been described as the sword of voting rights enforcement. And essentially allows, at this point, individual plaintiffs or the Justice Department to go into court when they think that a plan or, in this case, for redistricting map, that has either intentionally or through its effect essentially diluted their vote, prevented them from exercising equal opportunity to elect candidates. The distinction here that has been seriously undercut by this opinion is the effects claim that even if you don't have evidence of intent, and we can get back to that later, there's a framework that Section 2 has used basically for about 40 years that allows plaintiffs to go in and prove their case. It's an exacting standard. Essentially, you go in, you have to show

that the map that has been drawn essentially eliminates a community that is sufficiently large and compact that is identifiable in terms of its politics and that is subject to what we call racially polarized voting, that in the way that the map that's being challenged operates, that those voters in the community, let's just take African Americans as an example, are less likely over a series of elections to get their, preferred candidates elected because white voters generally don't agree to the same candidates that African Americans do. And when there's racially polarized voting and the other circumstances are demonstrated, the court then is allowed to make a judgment as to what the best remedy is. And in

many cases, the remedy has been creating a district that has something like a majority of the plaintiff's class, in this case African Americans, so that they can elect a candidate. So that's been the rule that has existed basically for about 40 years. This decision essentially undercuts that entire structure by saying, even if you can show what looks like polarized voting, you now have to demonstrate that it's not something like politics that's explaining the difference or partisanship. And that is very difficult in the South because everybody understands that race and party are very closely aligned. And I think Samuel Alito would have it that those two things aren't the same. And I think the lived experience of everybody dealing with the Voting Rights Act shows that

partisanship in many ways is, if not, totally driven by, heavily shaped by the attention to race. Well, Ben Akinaga is the Louisiana Solicitor General who argued to strike down the state's majority black congressional district, the one we're talking about here he is speaking outside the Supreme Court after all arguments back in October. If you know Louisiana's story, you know that for the past couple of years, we have been struggling to find a map, a congressional map that satisfies the court's precedence. It's been extremely difficult. We argued it once earlier this year. We're back here. And what I told the court at the podium is, look, at the end of the day, we really need clarity. The states need clarity on how they're supposed to comply with the Voting Rights Act

and with the Equal Protection Clause. So Kareem laid out the legal reasoning that Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, sort of how the legal reasoning goes here. Kerry, the ripple effects of the court ruling here have been significant. They've been swift. Alabama just a day after the decision dropped, the attorney general. There, Steve Marshall and the Secretary of State there, both Republicans filed emergency motions to lift injunctions blocking their 2021 map.

So jurisdictions all across the south are now moving to get rid of districts that before fell under Section 2 of the VRA. Give us a sense of just how quickly districts could fall ahead of the midterms here. Right. So that's a really complicated question at a chaotic moment. I think one thing is, in our reporting, I think what we've realized is states are going to move as Alabama is to try and redraw before the midterms. it's very likely that some of that won't be possible.

As you point out, Alabama's options here depend on some more court rulings and some things that are in play. They're going to need a court to say that they can do this in some cases. In other cases, states have already held their primaries. People have already voted. Filing deadlines have passed. Candidates have filed to run under the current district boundaries. In some cases, early voting is underway. Now, what we saw in Louisiana was, as early,

voting was starting, Governor Landry, as you pointed out, issued an emergency declaration said that votes for House candidates on this ballot will not count, and there will be another primary for House candidates after this redrawing happens. There's currently litigation over that, whether he can do that. Either way, I can tell you that what's happening right now is incredibly confusing for voters. I mean, Louisiana voters are looking at ballots with House candidates on them, but getting told that if they cast votes in those races, those won't count, and there'll be another primary. This is hugely—

And some have already voted. Some have already voted. And this is hugely confusing to voters who have done nothing at all wrong, show up and get handed ballots, right? Well, and Kerry, what does it also mean for those charged with seeing election processes actually happen and happen efficiently for voters? So that's a great question that's really important to us at votebeat that we cover closely. and the answer is this is an enormously difficult question.

When people file to be candidates, they have to meet requirements. Election officials have to make sure that that happens, that these people should go on the ballot. And in addition to that, ballots have to be designed, proofed, printed, and there have to be a bunch of different ballot styles with the right races on there for each voter. Voters have to be assigned to the right district so that they get the right races on their ballots. This is a hugely complicated process that does not happen overnight. Complicated and expensive. And the other thing is I haven't heard anyone from Louisiana talk about how they're going to pay for this. We got this message from one of you in Alabama.

We drew this crazy map that nobody likes that puts one side of the state in the hands of the other side of the state. They did that on purpose. They could have drawn a map that was contingent. and would have given blacks their fair vote. It's just racism. Racism. It's just around our country. Still ahead, we hear from a Louisiana congressman affected by the Supreme Court's decision.

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just as they've done for 40 years. Because clean air, clean water, and a healthy climate aren't political. They're fundamental. Learn more at SELC. dot org. Let's get back to our conversation now. We're looking at the Supreme Court's decision last week that weakens the Voting Rights Act and what's happening across the country as a result. We've been hearing from many of you.

Here's Steve from South Carolina. I'm Steve. I live in the greater Charleston, South Carolina area. I'm pretty sure that even though I religiously vote, my vote has not necessarily mattered due to, relatively speaking, a gerrymandered set of districts in the state of South Carolina. That doesn't mean I'm not going to vote. It doesn't mean I'm not going to be involved and express my opinion. It just doesn't mean, in practical terms, that my vote actually counted toward a better outcome for the country.

Now, South Carolina's congressional map was redrawn in 2022. It's faced intense legal battles in recent years. Kerry, what's important to know about that state as we try to understand the nationwide redistricting story today? I think what I'd say about South Carolina is that it's representative of some of the states in the South that have voting rights districts that have been incredibly important and meaningful to some of the residents there. And so it is a state whose primary has not happened yet that is still in a position to

redraw and where these redistricting battles have just been really hard fought. And there's substantial questions of representation and how well the map represents the entire voting public. And so we have already. around the country, been through an unprecedented cycle of midterm redistricting, right, at a time when that does not usually happen. And unprecedented numbers of states have redrawn their maps. Six, I believe, including Florida, have voluntarily redone so this cycle,

which is not something that has happened in modern times. And the effect of that is there are fewer competitive districts, right? and these maps are in most cases, not all, but in most cases less fair by all of the kind of neutral standards that maps are evaluated at. And so depending on what South Carolina does, these are the stakes here. So, Kareem, from where you sit to talk a little bit more about what Kerry is mentioning, there was a redistricting war that was going on before the Calais ruling that we're talking about, before the dilution of black voting power in Louisiana and the South. Of course, Texas started it. Donald Trump started it when he asked Texas Republicans to give him five seats. They did.

Then Democrats in California responded, and now we're off to the races. So from where you sit, where are we at in terms of representation and people's votes counting, heading into the midterms? Well, it's important as we talk about this to distinguish the discussion about partisanship as it's driven, as you described, the fight that has started by the White House asking Texas to jump into the fray mid-decade and all the other states pushing back from the conversation that began with the Calais decision, which really is about racial fairness.

And while there is a connection between the two, I think unfortunately the Calais decision conflated. But where are we right now is a really complicated question. I think after Virginia has, had its public ballot measure presented to the people and narrowly passed it to change its districts. I think most people viewed things as more or less at a kind of standstill. So there was a lot of effort put into fighting in state legislatures to get these new districts adopted with all the confusion and chaos that it likely will lead to for voters.

And basically the numbers are pretty much even. However, now that Calais is on the books, I think there are a lot of, states that are looking at this, and they're probably also looking at the nation's politics at present. And I think they're trying to get an edge wherever possible. So we won't know for all the legal reasons that were mentioned earlier where this is going to land. But I think at present, I think everyone is sort of being energized to act largely because of the interest in having, I think, an outsized influence in Congress. And we'll just have to see, you know, after all the legal wrangling is over where things in.

Well, Karim, I want to pull on this thread a little bit because you said you think people are conflating that the Calais decision with this larger push to redistrict. And why do you think it's important to separate the two? Well, it's important because the Voting Rights Act itself was always viewed as a bipartisan piece of legislation that was getting at something larger than partisanship. It was trying to make good on America's commitment. long delayed to give meaning to the 14th and 15th Amendment, that people should be able to have, regardless of race, a meaningful and equal vote cast, which would include the ability to be represented.

And it's important to note, as much as, again, this is by some being viewed through a partisan lens. The last time the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized was in 2006, and no one less than George W. Bush, not viewed as the most flaming liberal on the planet, and a Republican Congress. Congress, all authorized that act. It had been viewed as a consensus view of the American public. It is unfortunately now, partly because of our politics at present, but also because I think of some unfortunate misreasoning offered by Samuel Alito has been folded into a partisan framework. And I think in a very unhelpful way, most unhelpful with respect to the Voting Rights Act, to the very communities that the Voting Rights Act was designed to support.

I'm also curious to hear from you, Carrie, what you make of the speed at which the Voting Rights Act has been really torn apart. I did a little math and realized that my oldest siblings were born before the Voting Rights Act passed. So this is not a law that's been on the books for, you know, generations and generations. This is still, in the larger scope of history, a relatively new law. That's such an interesting point. And I think we've seen the nation change around the law and the way it thinks about these issues at an incredible speed. And I think that there's more change yet to come. I think one thing I would say to that is Samuel Alito's decision really made me think a lot about a previous decision that the court had made on redistricting in a case called Rucho v. Common Cause, in which the court essentially, said, you know, federal courts really can't be deciding, and Kareem would, I think, put this more elegantly than I would, but federal courts really can't be deciding when partisan gerrymandering crosses the line into too much partisan gerrymandering.

Like, partisan gerrymandering is distasteful, and we don't love it, but we can't really step in and start arbitrating it. And I thought that the decision that Samuel Alito wrote really treated partisan districting decisions as if they were a much more legitimate reason to draw a district line. It didn't treat it in quite the same distasteful way as the court had in Rujo. It was recognizing it almost to my reading as if it was a legitimate sort of thing for lawmakers to do a legitimate reason for them to have. And so it kind of elevated that. And I thought that it was somewhat reflective of the times that we lived in. To your point, I think about the speed at which this law has had its life cycle has come to this point, I think that we're seeing

the evolution of our thinking about a lot of things as a society and how that's shifted over time in these decisions and in how this law is being interpreted by the court. Kareem, anything to add? Yes, thank you. I appreciate the point about partisan gerrymandering. I, in a previous job, was very intimately involved with trying to present to the court an argument that it should act, it chose not to. But in fact, it has not just, I think, allowed it to be a legitimate interest.

It is incentivized in Calais the attention to partisanship as a cure-all. That is, the concerns about race discrimination are less important than a state policy that says, we are, let's just say, Republicans, and we like Republicans. And if we want to have more Republican districts and the cost of that business is that we ignore concerns by African-American, because they aren't for Republicans, so be it. That has to be a very enemic understanding of what the Voting Rights Act was intended to do. But for this court that purports to be standing outside

of the space of partisanship, they do a lot of work that seems to encourage it. And that's really unfortunate. Well, we're hearing from lots of you, Jay emailed. Oklahoma City had a Democratic representative for two years in 2019. The Republicans got to redraw the districts in 2020 and split the city into multiple districts, diluting the vote and forcing the Democrat out in the next election.

All our representatives are Republican now, which means they can't squeeze any more red out of this stone. And David, in Ohio emailed, I live in a one-party county and a different party-controlled state and country. I can and always vote, however, the partisanship mostly keeps me from voting for who I want through the lack of instant runoff or ranked choice voting, also being forced to choose one party in a primary. The gerrymandering means that the primary results almost always lead to a winner,

in the general elections. Kareem, we've been hearing from so many voters. Jen just gave voice to several of them there. We heard from Steve earlier from South Carolina who says, yeah, I'm going to vote, but I've been convinced for years my vote doesn't mean anything in this gerrymandered state. Can you talk about the cost of that calculation by voters, the cost to democracy, essentially that politicians now are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their politicians?

Absolutely. You know, we talked earlier about the monetary costs and they are significant to jumping back in the middle of a decade to reorganize these districts. But the cost to voters, I think, is really the thing that is the most dangerous, as much as the financial cost is significant. You know, it's important to remember, and particularly in the South, it is the growing part of our country. The engine of growth in this country is in the South. defined going all into the west into the sunbelt. But in those areas, all of the growth is like 85 or so percent of that growth is communities of color. And these are the very communities that are being fenced out because of the Calais decision. The danger is that those really heartbreaking concerns that are being expressed from the calls that you're hearing from, and I've heard plenty of it on my own, they will eventually, because of this growth, become a majority of the population.

And when a majority of the population feels like, A, I can't vote for whatever reason. I'm being intimidated. The rules that are set up don't get me the candidates that I would prefer or any number of the other things. I'm confused and I get sent to the wrong polling place. If a majority of the people in a society don't feel like the democratic experience of voting is an important one or even a meaningful one, you can call that a lot. lot of different things, but I don't think you can fairly call it a democracy. So there's an

existential danger if we get to the point in many of these states where majority of the population is unable or for that matter just essentially disincentivized from engaging in the core notion of politics. This isn't just about the Ds and the R's, you know, getting a majority of the seats. This really is about whether the public sees the democratic experiment as one worthy of their time and in trouble. Monica and Vermont emailed, I don't understand why voting district maps

are not simply drawn by someone who knows nothing about the racial makeup of the state. They could simply combine adjacent towns in order to create roughly equal-sized districts in terms of total population, perhaps taking into account

geographic features that separate regions such as mountain ranges, but no racial or political factors. Kerry, we have seen some states I'm thinking of states like Michigan that have taken redistricting out of the hands of their states,

legislatures and turned it over to voters. That can't happen in every state. Not every state has the ability to put that kind of voter-driven initiative on their ballot. But where have we seen states try to step away from gerrymandering, which is done by both parties? Yeah, I really love this question. Thank you so much for asking it. And thanks to the readers who wrote in to ask it. So, yes, we have seen states do that. Arizona has an independent redistricting commission, as you said, Michigan did. And I think this is something that really over the last decade, I felt like was catching on. You know, more states were looking at doing this, were creating neutral commissions, people were studying them and finding that the maps were fairer.

I will say that one of the premises, I think, that that movement was based on is that people don't like partisan gerrymandering, and people don't like it when they see districts carved up in ways that they don't think is going to reflect people having a meaningful, say, and electing their representatives. And so this was a push in response to. that. But I did talk to a law professor last week in the wake of the Calais decision who said that she really felt as though the Virginia and California referendums did show that when people have sufficient reason, they will endorse partisan gerrymandering, right? Those are states that had commissions and those are states that had said that they were not going to engage in this.

And then in response to what we've already discussed, which is President Trump's push for a Texas redraw of its maps, in an effort to speak to that and take away the benefits he might get from that, Virginia and California then redrew their maps as this redistricting war started to light up around the country. And so what we saw is that states that had passed these redistricting commissions were willing to make some exceptions here. And so one of the things I am wondering about is the future of those efforts. Well, unfortunately, we talk about gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering in the health of our democracy. We have to talk about naked partisan advantage because that's also what this is about. Let me just play you a clip from House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries representing New York, who's been talking about the partisan gerrymandering war going on right now. Democrats haven't lost the gerrymandering battle.

We're winning it. He says we're winning it. Kerry Levine, Republicans are staring down. the barrel of a midterm election. They are unpopular. President Trump is very unpopular. Everybody's starting to price in that Republicans might lose control. Can you just give us a brief update on sort of the prospect of House control given the gerrymandering advantage war that's going on, that the battle for seats before anybody votes? Right. So we actually just reported on that in something that I believe published on our site this morning. My colleague, Nathaniel, I get to talk to a redistricting expert.

Jonathan Servese, who has, you know, estimated how the eight new maps produced in this unprecedented recent redraw were going to perform in a variety of political environments. And he was estimating that the new maps that have passed up until now, so sort of through Florida, which still has to be finalized, would produce an average net Democratic gain of 2.69 seats. 2.69. So that's an estimate, and it's an average. And, you know, these things play out differently in elections on the ground.

But I just want to note that this may not have played out the way people expected when it started. We have to take a quick break, but still ahead. We hear from Representative Cleo Fields, a Democrat representing the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana. Stay with us.

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by the Supreme Court last week. Justice is found that state lawmakers relied too heavily on race when creating the majority black district that Congressman Fields represents. Congressman, welcome to 1A. Well, good to be with you. I appreciate you having me today.

Congressman, your district is in the news. I think it's safe to say that, and so are your prospects for re-election now that the state of Louisiana is stopping everything to redraw your district. Tell us about, your district a little bit who lives there and and what it's like well the district runs from shreeport to baton Rouge it's uh it's uh it's uh both urban and rural america it's majority

uh black uh and it's people who have not had representation uh the kind of representation that they have always desired in congress for years and uh it's uh it also have agriculture it has universities colleges, and it's a district that, you know, that has been disenfranchised for decades. And I'm excited and happy to represent it and plan to continue to represent it. The governor and the, you know, Secretary of State is just wrong. They shouldn't have suspended the election. Over 100,000 ballots had already been sent to citizens. Candidates had already qualified under the present map.

And people had started voting. Voting did not start Saturday. Voting started weeks ago. And we're challenging that because the Supreme Court, what it did not say, did not say suspend an election. It simply said that the 6th District was a racial gerrymander. And courts have held in the past that when you are close to an election, you shouldn't change the rules or the lines.

This was even worse. this was, we were in the middle of an election. But the climate of this country now is, you know, you know, you want your party to have the majority seats. I mean, that's why the president, you know, was felt, you know, some comfort in picking up the phone, calling in Texas and saying, I need five more Republican seats and they go into action and do it. Well, Congressman, you're in Baton Rouge now among your constituents there. And it's interesting, you haven't served a single day in Congress without a loss. suit before the Supreme Court over your district. What are your constituents saying to you? How are they

responding to this decision? They're upset, you know, and I tell them, you got to, you know, voice that, you know, that anger at the ballot box, you know, and they are doing that. They're going to the polls and record numbers, early voting, and I'm telling them to vote the entire ballot. Don't, don't, this election, you know, is suspended by the state, but it has not been suspended. by the Supreme Court. Let the Supreme Court decide yet again that, you know, African Americans and majority, I mean, and whites people in Louisiana have voted and their votes won't count. You know, Rule 44.1 gives the adverse party, any party, actually, to a lawsuit. Once the Supreme Court rules, they got 25 days to request a rehearing. I mean, the state just went in action right away.

But this is the same state, you know, where we got Plessy v. Ferguson, you know, where the Supreme Court ruled that, you know, the separate but equal did not violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. You know, I have to keep people engaged. I have to keep people inspired. I have to let them know this is not the end of the road. You know, people before me have fought, you know, bigger and harder battles. And we have to continue to fight these battles. particularly in the southern part of our country. And they just can't get disillusion to the extent that they, you know, stop voting. And that's the biggest challenge we have.

But I'm happy to report people actually getting out in their voting. And I hope they're voting the entire ticket. Well, Congressman, you talk about the stakes here. Jen mentioned the long arc of the Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act 1965. and that it just wasn't that long ago that the Voting Rights Act was passed. Can you talk about the conversations you have with your constituents about what's at stake for voters in general and for black voters across the South? Your district is not the only one that's probably going to get cracked after Calais.

So when your constituents come up to you to talk about what's at stake, what are those conversations like? You know, people's right to vote. I mean, at the end of the day, when they talk to me, be it by phone or in person, I just tell them, you know, it's everybody.

It's not just, you know, I tell people, you know, the issue is not Reverend Cleo feels serves another day in Congress. That's not the issue. The real issue, you know, is Reverend out a person lack me, you know, will have a mere opportunity

to serve in Congress. There's no history of a black person being elected to Congress from a majority white district in Louisiana. There's just no history of that. Is there history of blacks running for Congress from majority white district? You bet there he is. I'm one of them. You know, blacks have run for Congress before in majority,

very qualified candidates. And, you know, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, there's a lot of black voting that takes place. And so, you know, that's why we came about, that's why Congress voted the Voting Rights Act in the first place, because although we had a 15th Amendment right to vote, there were states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, they were, you know, putting obstacles in front of, you know, people of color in order to even register to vote. You know, there are folk who had to state the preamble to the Constitution. They were faced with poll tax. They were faced with all kinds of obstacles. And then the Congress and the president, Lyndon B. Johnson at that time, said, you know what, we're going to change this. We're going to have a Voting Rights Act.

And then they took away Section 5, which was like the real meat of the Voting Rights Act. Those states that were under Section 5, you know, when the government would pass laws, they had to get it pre-clear. And now they took away Section 2. Well, we're getting questions from our listeners. Ken in North Carolina emailed if the Democrats take control of the House and Senate in the 2026 election, is there anything they can do to mitigate the potential harm of the recent Supreme Court decision? Congressman, if you are reelected, how do you plan to work with colleagues in Congress on a legislative response to the court's ruling? I think there needs to be an immediate response.

I mean, I think as soon as the new Congress is elected, you know, If I'm in it or not, it doesn't matter. We really need to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court seems to be, you know, don't know about what takes place in the southern part of our country saying we have overcome all of these racial issues of the past. And we don't need Section 5 and we don't need Section 2. We've got to prove intent, you know, forget about the effect, the intent. is what count. We need to pass a voting rights act that has real teeth in it that basically says,

listen, you know, a person, first of all, we need to redo, we need to have a section of the Voting Rights Act for states that have a history of discriminating against blacks. All of those redistricting laws must be approved, and we need to make it clear and explicit. Leave nothing for a question for the Supreme Court, no ambiguity whatsoever. make sure those states, you know, have preclearance and make sure that people's votes are not diluted. Well, Congressman, we're going to be following the next Congress very closely. I just want to ask you a little bit more quickly about what else is going on in Louisiana.

This isn't the only story that we're tracking in your state because last week, state lawmakers passed a new bill to merge. This is in New Orleans now. Criminal and civil clerks, these two offices merge them. into one office. And that basically abolishes the seat of newly elected Calvin Duncan. He's a formerly incarcerated black man who won his race for criminal clerk with 68% of the vote. He started the job today after a judge granted Duncan's request for a temporary restraining order against the state to keep it from enforcing the bill. So, Congressman, do you see any connection between that move by the state legislature to basically legally gerrymander Duncan out of a judge? job and the Supreme Court's ruling for your district. Yeah, absolutely. But I think the court ruled last night that he can now take his seat.

And I said it all alone. Look, the people of Louisiana have spoken. You know, you can't. I mean, who does that? I mean, who eliminates a seat after the people of the district have already said, you are elected to represent us? That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's on American, is unconscionable. it's just unbelievable. And I'm glad that the court spoke to that. Just as I think the court should speak to this, the present case, you know? Well, Congressman, just before we let you go very briefly, what are the days ahead look like for you?

What do you plan to do for your constituents and to potentially protect your district? Well, I mean, we're holding several town hall meetings. Tonight, we're in Shreveport, tomorrow night we're in Alexandria, and then Wednesday we're in Lafayette. And Thursday, we're in Baton Rouge, just informing the public as to what's taken place as relates to the Cali case. And we plan to keep, you know, people informed and get them involved. And that's what we plan to do for the next several days. That's Louisiana Democratic Representative Cleo Fields. His district was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last week. Congressman, thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Bye. Now, let's get back to our guests for the rest of the hour. Creighton of the Brennan Center for Justice and Carrie Levine from Votebeat. Laura in Florida emailed, I live in Naples, Florida, and our district was cut in two with a new redistricting. In 2010, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment that says districts cannot be drawn in favor of a particular candidate or party. This action from Ron DeSantis voted up by the Republican Party is a violation of their oath of office. This is wrong. Carrie, just very briefly explain what's happening in Florida.

Right. So there are, there's federal law that applies to redistricting, but different states also have parameters. And as this, a listener has pointed out, Florida's constitution doesn't allow redistricting for partisan purposes. So the governor and state lawmakers have offered other reasons for this, though it is coming amid a national fight fueled by partisan reasons. And I think the general consensus is that's got something. to do with this. Kareem, we were talking about this in my family over the weekend, the issue of gerrymandering and the issue of Calais. And somebody asked me a great question. Why can't congressional districts basically be squares or rectangles appropriately drawn because a rectangle is the fairest shape I can think of? And it's a good question.

We got this question from Robert. What would a fair voting map look like in each state? And perhaps more importantly, how would it be technically determined in a fair manner? It seems to me this task. could be made objective with good data and a program interpreting those data. So, Kareem, how would you do it if it's not just rectangles? So just a couple of points about that. I mean, our states aren't all rectangles, for one thing. And people don't live in perfectly, you know, primary shapes. And that's one of the reasons

why it's difficult to just sort of have what might be ocularly appealing. And so what What we do instead is try to take a lot of different factors into account. There is a formula for getting districts that are more fair. One element of it is having districts driven by data, that is to say, information about where people live, what they see their communities as, and frankly, what has been done in the past. We might want to follow the pattern. We might not. But to give at least a sense of regularity and how decisions are made about how districts are drawn. But more important than that, I think, are the concerns about transparency.

One of the big challenges we see in the current era is most of those decisions about how districts are drawn, with the exceptions of places that Kerry talked about earlier that use independent commissions, those decisions are taken behind closed doors. And frankly, the Supreme Court has blessed decisions that make the public less aware of those decisions and the information that goes into the decisions. And related to the transparency concern, just briefly is to say, we want the public to be able to say what makes sense to them. So when those three factors are in play, it seems to me you're more likely to get what looks like a fair district.

So just in the final moments that we have here, if you can keep it, this regular segment we do on 1A is titled because Benjamin Netanyahu Franklin was asked what kind of government the founders created, and he answered a republic if you can keep it. So after this past week, including the Supreme Court ruling, the redistricting scramble already underway, and Louisiana's primary in jeopardy very briefly from each of you, how are you feeling about our ability to keep it? Carrie? That's a big question, right? I have a lot of faith in the American public in voters. I think that they are going to turn out in this midterm election and they are going to vote for people to represent them. I do think that in the wake of the Shelby County decision in 2013, which struck down Section 5, which the representative referred to, we've been through a lengthy period of instability in election law in people making structural changes to the way that this works that has really left people disenchanted with our system. And we'll see what this decision yields.

Kareem, in just a few sentences. Briefly, we've got to have the public that is immune to distraction. It is now time to reform the Supreme Court of the United States and get a Congress that's really ready to deal with big questions about reform like dealing with partisan gerrymandering and the protection of people and rules like the Voting Rights Act. We'll leave our conversation there for now. Lots more to watch in the months ahead. That's Kareem Creighton, Vice President of the Washington Office of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law and Carrie Levine, editor-in-chief of Votebeat. Thanks to you both. Remember, you can always follow the show on Instagram at The 1A Show. Today's producer was Avery Jessa Chapnik. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Jen Moy and I'm Todd's willing.

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