Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted Louisiana a stay on a lower court ruling that sought to force the state’s mapmakers to draw a majority-Black congressional district. This means that a congressional district map that was previously thrown out for racial gerrymandering will remain in place for the 2022 elections.

*deep breath*

I know most of us are beside ourselves with SCOTUS’s recent decisions and the way they chip away at equal rights for many marginalized Americans. This move proves that SCOTUS is only just getting started and our legislators need to be prepared to craft new protections for equal rights. That will likely include passing a whole new Voting Rights Act as SCOTUS has already invalidated major portions of the 1965 version. These decisions show that the majority is likely on track to strike down Section 2: our nation’s last remaining safeguard against racial discrimination at the ballot box.

Remember Deflategate? For those that don’t, way back in 2014 the Patriots straight up cheated in the AFC Championship, allowing them to compete in and subsequently win the Super Bowl that year. Republicans are basically following Brady’s playbook and SCOTUS is playing the role of a corrupt referee. Let’s adapt that controversy to match what’s going on with redistricting in several states across the South…

Imagine if Tom Brady walked on the field five minutes before the start of the game and told everyone, “We’re gonna cheat in this game by using deflated footballs.” Of course, the coach from the opposing team would immediately challenge this as violating the rules and would want the referees to step in BEFORE the game begins to ensure that a fair game is played.

Now imagine if the referees said, “Okay, we know the Patriots are about to cheat, but it’s SOOO close to game time that we should just move forward with the game as-is and talk about this later.” That’s pretty much what SCOTUS has done for Alabama and now Louisiana. (And this isn’t limited to SCOTUS: lower-level federal courts adopted the Supreme Court’s strategy to let racially gerrymandered maps stand for the 2022 elections in Georgia and South Carolina as well.) Both Alabama and Louisiana passed maps that clearly violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act as both states fail to give African Americans the required amount of seats relative to their populations in each state. Lower level courts in both states threw out these maps for racial gerrymandering and maps would have been redrawn had SCOTUS not intervened.

These states would have not been able to pass these maps at all if SCOTUS didn’t strike down ‘preclearance’ in 2013. Preclearance was a set of provisions passed in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required certain states with a history of racial discrimination from enacting any changes related to voting rights without federal approval. The Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder invalidated the preclearance formula, opening up the floodgates for states across the South to alter voting rights without federal approval for the first time in half a century. We all know what happened next. It’s no coincidence that all of these states where racially gerrymandered maps are surviving were previously covered by the preclearance formula.

What’s even more frustrating is that Louisiana does not have a primary election any time soon. In fact, Louisiana doesn’t hold a primary at all. The state’s next election is the general election on November 8, where any candidate that wins a majority of the vote wins outright and those who fail to reach 50% qualify for a runoff at a later date. As a reminder, SCOTUS leaned on the “Purcell principle” in its decision to let Alabama use their racially gerrymandered maps: judges felt that throwing out the new congressional districts would make it impossible to hold the upcoming election as it was occurring in a matter of weeks. That’s very clearly not the case in Louisiana.

Louisiana’s mapmakers have ample time to reassess and draw new districts that enfranchise all of Louisiana’s voters. SCOTUS sees it differently: while no opinion was given in the decision to grant Louisiana a stay, it’s crystal clear that SCOTUS does not see the potential disenfranchisement of Black voters as a cause for alarm.

The path forward from here is incredibly depressing. Voters across the South will be forced to vote in congressional elections knowing that the lines are drawn in such a way to make their votes inconsequential. Black voters in particular have to deal with the nation’s highest court scoffing at their potential disenfranchisement. And the worst part of it all is that Republicans know exactly what they’re doing. Make no mistake: these gerrymandered maps were no accident. The Republican party has a deep history of taking the redistricting process seriously, meticulously using data to draw their own victories. If the path to victory involves sidelining an entire minority group and completely trampling on their rights, they’ll gladly do it with a smile as they lie through their teeth about their intent.

Leftover Links

• Dive deeper into Louisiana’s new congressional district to see exactly how Republicans disenfranchised the state’s Black voters.

• Learn more about the ways SCOTUS has chipped away at the Voting Rights Act over the past few years.