The Supreme Court decision in Callais, eviscerating what was left of the Voting Rights Act, was not unexpected. As numerous legal observers have noted, destroying the VRA had rather obviously been a central aim of John Roberts for many years. Thanks to his fellow ideologues on the court, and a case that presented an opportunity, the result was pretty much fore-ordained.
Its predictability doesn’t make it better, of course.
Perhaps the best analysis in the wake of the decision was Robert Hubbell’s. As he wrote,
For more than six decades, the VRA stood as a towering achievement in the fight to secure equal voting rights for Black Americans, who continue to suffer the effects of nearly two-and-a-half centuries of slavery in North America and 161 years of voter suppression in the United States.
The decision is an abomination. It seeks to repeal the voting protections of the 14th and 15th Amendments, which specifically prohibit denial of the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Those amendments empower Congress to enact enabling legislation, long-recognized as authorizing race-based remedies to address race-based discrimination. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301 (1966) (“[T]he portions of the Voting Rights Act properly before us are a valid means for carrying out the commands of the Fifteenth Amendment.”)
Hubbell traced the evidence of Robert’s preoccupation with the Act, noting that when Roberts was a young lawyer working for Ronald Reagan, he had written 25 memos crafting legal arguments opposing the Act’s reauthorization, and had specifically focused on preventing Congress from strengthening Section 2’s protections for minority voters.
So here we are. The Supreme Court Justice who famously insisted that he would be a dispassionate jurist calling “balls and strikes” turned out to be just as retrograde as the profoundly dishonest and corrupt Samuel Alito, who wrote the decision.
But the most important part of Hubbell’s analysis came at its conclusion, where he reminded Americans that we have a remedy for this effort to reinstate Jim Crow. That remedy would actually do far more good than a simple reversal of the results in this case or even Citizens United. That remedy is the eradication of all gerrymandering.
The Court has persistently, inexplicably failed to outlaw partisan gerrymandering. It has only ruled against gerrymandering that is obviously racial, and thus in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Preventing all gerrymandering would eliminate racial gerrymandering, not only achieving the objectives of the Voting Rights Act, but putting an end to the state game-playing that depresses the vote and disenfranchises voters in whatever party is in the minority in a given state.
I have inveighed against gerrymandering on this platform too many times to count, because I am absolutely convinced that it is one of the most powerfully anti-democratic aspects of our current political structure.
And as Hubbell reminds us, there are remedies–legislative measures that, if passed, will end all gerrymandering–racial or partisan.
Democrats have proposed two pieces of legislation that would do just that:
The Redistricting Reform Act of 2025 (Would require every state to adopt nonpartisan, independent redistricting commissions and prohibit mid-census redistricting); and
The Freedom to Vote Act (Would establish enforceable anti-gerrymandering criteria for use in redistricting, and authorize national mail voting, automatic voter registration, online registration, etc.)
We would need to control both chambers in Congress, abolish the filibuster, and elect a Democratic president. We can accomplish each of those tasks by January 2029, when the new Congress and president are sworn in.
Given the corruption and ineptitude of the Trump administration, and the fecklessness of GOP congresscritters and Senators, that result looks increasingly do-able. But as Hubbell also reminds us, we must also prevent the Roberts Court from striking down pro-voter legislation by expanding the Supreme Court in 2029.
Hubbell’s post has much more detail, as well as citations to legal scholars whose opinions are also well worth reading. I encourage you to click through for that expanded analysis. In the meantime, I want to emphasize the final paragraph of his discussion.
It was a bad day in the Supreme Court. But we are on the cusp of regaining the political power that will allow us to undo most of John Roberts’ damage. The sting of Callais will linger for several years, but if we are bold and courageous, John Roberts’s worst will be a distant memory in six years.
In order to make that prediction a reality, we need to begin with a Blue tsunami in November.
Yes. Blue Tsunami. Or else. As Todd has so often pointed out on this blog, the Koch-funded Federalist Society is the bane of democracy. Throw in the CATO idiots and we have what we have. George W. Bush was too stupid to understand the consequences of appointing Alito and Roberts to the court. He was led around by his nose to allow these legal monsters into our third leg of the stool.
And here we are. The salvation of our democracy, as always, lies with the voters. I can’t imagine any excuse for not voting in the coming elections this November, or in 2028 when the orange monster must be removed and forever forgotten.
This was my response to Alito’s comment on why we don’t need the VRA or any such legislation. Too bad so few will see it.
A State Fair
Morton J. Marcus
May 7, 2026
The evil word is back. Beware!
With some trepidation, I must report that Diversity (oh, the hideous word) is still among us. No manifesto or executive order has eliminated it, yet.. We are not, as our national executive and judicial leadership may wish, without diversity.
Of course, we could ignore it. In fact, in time, it may be declared inconsequential. State and federal agencies might be directed to shut the books on it. We’ve already seen one Supreme Court justice declare, from his Olympic height, that differences among the races have been eliminated to the happy extent that they need not be in the law or in practice.
Thus, this may be the last report the Census Bureau has available on income differentials among the races and among the states of our more perfect Union.
The annual American Community Survey (ACS to its friends and admirers) reported that the median household income of the median state (including, as we should, the District of Columbia (DC) as a state) was $77,485 in 2024. That’s the figure for Wisconsin, 26th among the 51 entities.
Indiana, ranked 39th, at $71,957, or 35% below top ranked DC, where, currently, they make nothing but trouble.
[For those suffering a temporary absence of memory, the median of a group is that entity (state or household in this case) smack in the middle, with half above and half below.]
Mississippi ranked last with a median household income of $56,447, or 22% below Indiana and 49% below DC.
Households may be a single person living alone or a large family of multiple generations persisting in cramped quarters or delighting in the comfort of familiarity. The householder is the person who owns or rents the living quarters, often one of a pair of such persons.
The Census uses the self-identified race of the householder as a proxy for the entire unit. You can easily think of exceptions, but it still works well in practice.
Nationally, the median income for a white household is 7% higher than the median for all household. For a black or African-American household the median is 30% below the median for all households. In Indiana, the white household is 5% above and the black household 34% below the median for all Hoosier households.
White Indiana households trail whites nationally by 6% and blacks households are 15% below their national counterparts. But then we’re accustomed to our jingoistic spokesmen telling us our cost of living is lower than that of better-paid citizens nationally, and our education is inferior to our counterparts in other states, and we do have the 500 race and the final four, even if we can’t afford the tickets.
By-the-way, Asian households in Indiana have a median income 17% greater than the median Hoosier household. Nationally, that racial premium is 25%. Whatever your heritage, it looks like you can do better than “back home in Indiana.”
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Mr. Marcus is a research economist formerly with the Kelley School of Business at IU. Contact him at [email protected]. Listen to him and John Guy on the podcast Who Gets What? at mortonjohn.libsyn.com
“The Rights of Man” is a book first published by Thomas Paine in 1791, including 31 articles, positing that popular political revolution is permissable when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people.”
And we thought Trump only took us back to the 1950s. Mitch McConnell set the stage for the 2025 “Trump revolution” by being allowed or ignored by our elected government officials in the Senate and House to refuse to perform the duties and responsibilities they all were elected to and swore Oaths of Office to perform. He began during President Obama’s administration; effectively using unspoken racism, sexism and bigotry to stall out filling federal court nomination hearings, vy simply refusing to act, till a Republican was sitting in the White House. Did he foresee that would include a convicted felon and rapist protected during Trump’s presidential campaign by the conservative Roberts heading the Supreme Court? Whether he did or not; it was during the first Trump administration that McConnell filled many federal courts, including the Supreme Court, with seditious judges leading to this second term and Trump’s Fascist Revolution with full immunity to act.
“Given the corruption and ineptitude of the Trump administration, and the fecklessness of GOP congresscritters and Senators, that result looks increasingly do-able. But as Hubbell also reminds us, we must also prevent the Roberts Court from striking down pro-voter legislation by expanding the Supreme Court in 2029.”
Pray tell us; who or what is over Roberts’ Court and how in hell are we supposed to survive to accomplish this in 2029 with Trump’s fat, trembling finger hovering closer and closer to that Red Button with the Court’s full immunity and no sitting Congress to stop him?
The “difference among the races,” is, obviously most present, despite the BS!
We need to both applaud that, come to accept, if not love differences, and protect all so-called “races.” ALL!!!!!!!!
“The Census uses the self-identified race of the householder as a proxy for the entire unit. You can easily think of exceptions, but it still works well in practice.”
Isn’t the redistricting been based on Census statistics as the rule to prevent politicizing distribution of tax dollars? I AM asking. Is it an actual rule, law or bill? Gerrymandering is fraudulent at its base and Census figures from Trump’s “Census” in 2020 was fraudulent at least in part by the different forms of Census sent to the public. I wish I had copied the form I received; after the basic personal information was posted there were 10 questions only. Question 1. How many Hispanics reside at the address above? Question 2. How many Hispanics reside at the address above not listed in Question 1? Questions 3 through 10. Race and Ethnic background of persons living at the address above? I had always dreaded filling out the Census form due to needing to look up some of the information to respond fully and truthfully.
As for those Median Income figures; I can only wish I came even close to any one of them of any state or on any race. And I know of others whose income is lower than mine; poverty level statistics are rising at an alarming rate today, I see deteriorating home and lawn maintenance on my daily walks through my neighborhood, I also see frequently empty rental houses. I see damaged vehicles, including my own crumpled fender, due to deductible insurance rates being cost prohibitive to repair. We have only one supermarket within reasonable distance, some of the fast food restaurants are closed, infrastructure in need of repair throughout the surrounding area. This has been visibly escalating over the last 10 years. Is all of this based on Census forms such as I received in 2020? Trump’s SCOTUS protected Fascist governing has risen in power in less than 10 years; actually less than 2 years for the astronomical rise since January 20, 2025, he rose much faster and more destructive than Hitler’s rise.
We are moving closer and closer to having no voting rights and we can’t wait past November 2026 to hope for relief. IF, IF, IF we accomplish that hoped for Blue Wave on November 3rd; think of the escalated damage which can be done between November 3rd and January 1, 2027 at the rate it is moving today. Affordability and rising costs due to Trump’s tariffs and now his wars prevents donations to provide support for that hoped for Blue Wave. I have voted in today’s Primary using my mail-in ballot but will it be counted and will I be allowed to vote in November? At 89, will I even be here to vote; my loss of medical care coverage at escalated rates makes that questionable.
You are a salve for the soul Sheila!
I have mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating today. Several years ago, Florida voters passed a resolution that was supposed to put an end to partisan gerrymandering. In Florida, if a resolution gets 60 percent of voters’ approval, it becomes part of the state constitution. Keep in mind that the legislature writes the laws and regulations supporting the amendment. When this particular resolution became part of the constitution, Republicans hadn’t yet realized their power to subvert the will of the people through roadblocks thrown up in the laws and regulations they crafted to comply with the new amendment..
That being said, the constitution of Florida prohibits PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING! In spite of that, our legislature just gerrymandered a brand new map. They didn’t say that it was partisan, nor did they say it was racial. By not saying they believe it will pass muster. After all, it’s reviewable by the State Supreme Court and they are well aware which side their bread is buttered on. I don’t expect them to be profiles in courage but I do expect the Democrats to make sure voters are aware of this chicanery, over and over again through November
When did Clarence Thomas become a white person? Possibly before he was nominated for the Supreme Cult?
Maga knows it’s in trouble with majority of voters so their resorting to breaking and making up the voting rules as we proceed. A governor in Louisiana? even stopped early voting to accommodate the Callais ruling and redistrict during voting time. WTF! That can’t stand.
It was reported that only the conservative judges were invited to the State Dinner at the White House honoring the King of England. The day after all six conservative judges rendered the callous Callais decision. Their elitist attitude is on full display.
The national spotlight is on Indiana today to see if trump’s “primaried” strategy is still effective. In a sane world his endorsement would be a negative. I hope Indiana republicans have taken their blinders off.
Chuck Todd has been promoting the expansion of Congress on his podcasts. he has convinced me of the value of more, smaller districts as a tool to combat gerrymandering.
I am not at all convinced about expanding the Supreme Court for any purposes other than to bring the number of Justices up to the number of circuits. I have an ideological and what may be a political reason. The ideological is that our reliance on the Supreme Court to update the Constitution is where we originally broke the Constitution; we have swapped a conversation between the people and the government for one between the branches of the government. The political reason is that I just see the current battles being fought in the Senate, along with their attendant BS from nominees, increased to the detriment of other Senatorial duties. The last is derived from my reading of Caro’s “Master of the Senate”.
We hould also not take our eyes off of state races. Indiana needs tools to by-pass the legislaure, such as the referendum