The shameful response to the Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling | Opinion

I’ll concede I’m having a tough time accommodating myself to the arrogant and lawless gutting of the Voting Rights Act. It’s not that it came as a surprise. John Roberts and Samuel Alito have made its eradication a life’s work. Though I do marvel that, knowing the American story, these sons of the Harvard and Yale law schools would choose such an unworthy mission as the core of their professional efforts. I know all of us are different. But really? Snuffing out the most consequential piece of civil rights legislation in our nation’s history? And doing it joyfully, with the aura of a victory dance.

To me, it’s as if we declared, through official proclamation, that we now reject the “self-evident” truths of the Declaration, or the Gettysburg Address’ “dedication to the proposition” that all “are created equal.” Or as if, when Martin Luther King pled: “All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper” – we responded, “you’ve got a great point, we’ll change what we wrote down.”

And then there are the things some people say.

When Hans Van Spakofsky, former Republican member of the Federal Election Commission and architect of many of the voting “reform” proposals of Project 2025, was asked what happens if the Callais decision means that the number of Black congresspersons is dramatically reduced, he said: “If Black people want to get someone elected, they need to affiliate with the Republican Party.” In other words, if Black southerners want to participate fully in the electoral process, they need to sign on to an agenda of white supremacy. Then we’ll lock arms.

Or, closer to home, when Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chairman of the national Republican Congressional Committee, praised the VRA ruling as “a victory for the Constitution,” saying, “for too long activists have manipulated the redistricting process to achieve political outcomes, dividing Americans instead of bringing them together” – it might have been nice to remind him that for the last sixteen years it hasn’t been “activists” who have “manipulated the redistricting process” in North Carolina, it has been the ruthless Republican lawmakers of the General Assembly.

They, the reviewing federal courts have specifically found, have given us “one of the most widespread racial gerrymanders ever confronted by a federal court in the United States” – “resulting in serious and longstanding constitutional violations.” The “transgressions were so foundational” that they “intruded upon” the very notion of “popular sovereignty.” The violations were so extreme that they “raised legitimate questions regarding the General Assembly’s capacity or willingness” to comply with the Constitution.

Lawmakers also drew plans, another court ruled, because the mapmaker “thinks electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.” The primary goal was “to create as many districts as possible” to favor Republicans. They gave a “partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because they didn’t think it was possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.” Only mathematics, not will, limited their efforts.

Then, just months ago, Republican lawmakers re-re-gerrymandered our congressional districts because Donald Trump told them to. One of the main architects of the new distortion scheme said, amazingly, the change was necessary “to make sure that one man does not predetermine the controls of Congress … North Carolina will not be bullied into submission. We will not let outsiders tell us how to govern.”

I’m not making this up.

When Lyndon Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act, he said:

“There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong – deadly wrong – to deny any fellow American the right to vote.”

They’ve torn the paper. Shame.

Contributing columnist Gene Nichol is a professor of law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.