I don’t get a vote that guarantees me a Republican member of Congress. Still, Democrats are complaining that if the Supreme Court changes the Voting Rights Act, Republicans will gain seats in the US House once held by Democrats, as if Democrats are better for Black Americans.
First, the right to vote does not come with a right to vote by race or any other demographic factor. Citizens 18 or older can vote, with a few rare exceptions. Redistricting does not change that right, though it can clearly change the partisan outcome.
But the right to vote does not guarantee a result that provides partisan representation. I live in New England, where at least 40% of the population, some of whom are black, Hispanic, gay, female, and so on, are Republicans, but we do not have one single Republican to represent us in Congress.
We are a minority in New England, but no Democrat is arguing that our voting rights were violated or that we need to gerrymander districts so we get at least four or five members of Congress who “look like us” politically. But you can make the case that gerrymandering districts based on race is racist (as a reflection of its deliberateness).
Would anyone suggest we district by white race? Of course not, that’s part of the reason why the Voting Rights Act came to be, but how is doing precisely that for blacks or any other demographic not the same problem?
Shouldn’t we district by population and skip the rest of it, creating representation based on geography rather than ideology or, worse, presumed ideology?
The case, Louisiana v. Callais, stems from a significant legal battle over how to balance the protection of minority voting rights with the principles of equal protection under the Constitution. At the heart of this case is whether Louisiana’s decision to create a second majority-Black district through Louisiana Senate Bill 8 SB8 is a reasonable attempt to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or whether it constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
The Voting Rights Act, specifically Section 2, was designed to prevent election rules that disproportionately affect minority groups. Under Section 2, courts can step in when minority voters face discrimination in the form of vote dilution, often where their voices are not fully heard in the election process. However, while Section 2 seeks to protect against this type of discrimination, the Constitution limits how states can address these concerns, particularly when race becomes a deciding factor in redistricting.
Can we be painfully honest about this?
Democrats only argue for gerrymandered black voting districts because they have tricked them into thinking Democrats are their defenders, even though it is demonstrably true that this is against their own best interest.
If blacks voted Republican, Democrats would not only not give a shit about the black vote, they would gerrymander it some other way for the chance at more political power regardless of minority status. The same way they’d stop barking about student voting rights (especially the out-of-state students’ right to vote in the state where they go to school instead of by mail or in-person in the state they live in), if they started voting majority Republican.
And let’s face facts. Voting for black Democrats hasn’t improved their circumstances. The quality of life for many black Americans has declined precipitously since they switched from the Republicans to the Democrats, regardless of color.
Voting Republican very well could improve their circumstances, and given how poorly Democrats have done, it can’t be worse. And maybe somebody should make the case that the voting rights act dilutes the rights of black Republicans who are incapable of achieving representation in congres because of it.
