May 27, 2026 · 47 min · 10 segments
In this episode of Politics in Question, Lee and James discuss the Supreme Court's recent redistricting ruling and what it means for American democracy. The case out of Louisiana — in which the…
James WallnerHost
Lee DrutmanHostNo entities detected.
Louisiana has a, you know, after the 2020, um, census, which is h- when we usually redistrict, right? In states where you have a census every 10 years, and then, depending on population changes, some states lose seats, other states gain seats in the House of Representatives.
And so the state legislatures, or, depending on the state, a, an independent commission or whatever process they follow, will then redraw their maps to accommodate that gain or loss of a seat, and then you get new maps, right? I mean, that's typically when we see the-
But in, in that process, people have criticized the states for drawing districts for various reasons, and that's the gerrymander, Henrymander.
Yeah, broke from the mold and did a, a mid, a mid-decade redistricting that set off this kind of frenzy, and then California and the Democrats are going to, uh, follow suit, and so on and so on.
You know, Louisiana's doing this the, you know, the, the way that it's been done, right, uh, after 2020.
But in 2022, a federal judge, uh, a district judge, says that the, um, that the map that Louisiana drew violated, uh, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it didn't in- include another majority Black district, right? So then the state goes back to the drawing board, literally, and they draw the new map, and they include that district.
But then another challenger sues, right, or t- you know, files suit against the state and says, "No, that is a racial gerrymander, and you can't do that." And another district court holds that this new map with the additional majority Black district violates the Equal Protection Clause, right? And so the state appealed to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court took up the case, and the Court decided, right, on a ...
You know, it's not a unified decision by any means, but the conservative justices on the Court decided, in keeping with kind of past Voting Rights Act, uh, cases that we've seen over the past, what, 10, 15 years, um, that it in fact, um, did.
Louisiana has a, you know, after the 2020, um, census, which is h- when we usually redistrict, right? In states where you have a census every 10 years, and then, depending on population changes, some states lose seats, other states gain seats in the House of Representatives.
And so the state legislatures, or, depending on the state, a, an independent commission or whatever process they follow, will then redraw their maps to accommodate that gain or loss of a seat, and then you get new maps, right? I mean, that's typically when we see the-
But in, in that process, people have criticized the states for drawing districts for various reasons, and that's the gerrymander, Henrymander.
Yeah, broke from the mold and did a, a mid, a mid-decade redistricting that set off this kind of frenzy, and then California and the Democrats are going to, uh, follow suit, and so on and so on.
You know, Louisiana's doing this the, you know, the, the way that it's been done, right, uh, after 2020.
But in 2022, a federal judge, uh, a district judge, says that the, um, that the map that Louisiana drew violated, uh, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it didn't in- include another majority Black district, right? So then the state goes back to the drawing board, literally, and they draw the new map, and they include that district.
But then another challenger sues, right, or t- you know, files suit against the state and says, "No, that is a racial gerrymander, and you can't do that." And another district court holds that this new map with the additional majority Black district violates the Equal Protection Clause, right? And so the state appealed to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court took up the case, and the Court decided, right, on a ...
You know, it's not a unified decision by any means, but the conservative justices on the Court decided, in keeping with kind of past Voting Rights Act, uh, cases that we've seen over the past, what, 10, 15 years, um, that it in fact, um, did.
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