In the past two years, a dozen states have either approved new U.S. House maps or are moving toward doing so — a highly unusual mid-decade revamp prompted by President Donald Trump and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling late last month. And the situation isn’t settled yet — even as ballots are being printed and early voting is already underway in some places. Pending litigation could scramble the situation even further.

Redistricting, the process of redrawing the geographic boundaries of U.S. House and state legislative districts, usually takes place every 10 years following the census.

Trump upended that schedule early last year, when he began pressuring state GOP officials to redraw their maps to help Republicans hold onto a slim, five-seat majority in the U.S. House ahead of potentially grim 2026 midterm elections for his party.

The Supreme Court recast the redistricting fight with its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. That decision all but nullified a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act that required states to draw electoral maps to give racial minority voters the opportunity to elect their chosen candidates.

A total of nine states — Alabama, California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — have redrawn their maps since last year. At least three other states — Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — appear likely to follow suit, though Georgia’s new maps would not be in effect for the upcoming midterm elections.

As things currently stand, Republicans are likely to gain up to 17 seats, while Democrats are likely to gain up to six seats.

In the aftermath of the Callais decision, hundreds of protesters have gathered at statehouses in recent weeks, particularly in the South, to decry what they say is a concerted effort to dilute Black voting and governing power. Republicans argue that maps should be “colorblind.” Gerrymandering to benefit one political party over another is legal at the federal level, though some states have their own laws restricting it.

The latest redistricting efforts are changing elections that have already begun. Some candidates must now pivot to races in brand-new districts with just a few weeks until their primaries. They’ve spent money and time reaching people who can no longer vote for them, fighting opponents different from the ones they now face. At least one Tennessee Democratic candidate no longer lives within the new boundaries of the district he’s seeking to represent.

Voters in states such as Alabama will now be asked to turn out for primary elections in both May and August, in addition to the November general election.

Here’s where things stand now.

Nine states already have redrawn their maps

Alabama

Republicans could gain 1 seat.*

A 2023 court order required Alabama to draw a congressional map with a second majority-Black district. But after the Callais decision last month, Alabama’s Republican state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let them reinstate the old map, which has just one majority-Black, majority-Democratic district and which the court had previously ruled racially discriminatory. The high court quickly agreed.

Republican Gov. Kay Ivey has announced new primary elections in August for the affected districts. These will be held in addition to next Tuesday’s statewide primaries for other federal and state offices.

Alabama is also appealing a separate ruling requiring it to redraw two state Senate districts. That case is still ongoing.

California

Democrats likely to gain 3-5 seats.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year led the Democratic response to Trump’s call for Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps.

In November 2025, California voters approved Newsom’s proposal to temporarily override the state’s independent redistricting commission and instead to allow the Democratic-dominated legislature to redraw the maps to create districts more favorable to Democrats. The new map is valid through 2030.

Florida

Republicans likely to gain 1-4 seats.

Last month, the Republican-majority Florida Legislature approved Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new congressional map that could net the GOP up to four new congressional seats.

Both DeSantis and the voting rights organizations suing to block the new map agree it violates parts of the state constitution. But DeSantis argues the constitution’s anti-gerrymandering amendments, which were overwhelmingly adopted by Florida voters in 2010, are invalid, partly due to the Callais ruling.

Missouri

Republicans likely to gain 1 seat.

Earlier this week, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the state’s gerrymandered 2025 congressional map, handing Republicans a victory. Last summer, Trump pressured Missouri Republicans to help maintain the GOP majority in the U.S. House, so lawmakers met in a special session to draw a map that likely will give them an additional seat by carving off parts of Kansas City into surrounding rural districts.

The new map will be used in Missouri’s August primary, the state Supreme Court ruled this week, because it’s uncertain whether a referendum petition seeking to repeal the map will succeed.

North Carolina

Republicans likely to gain 1 seat.

At Trump’s behest, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the state’s congressional map last fall. It was an effort to make the state’s only competitive district solidly Republican. The maps passed strictly along party lines. The state’s congressional delegation is now likely to be 11 Republicans and three Democrats. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein is a Democrat, but redistricting isn’t subject to the governor’s veto.

Ohio

Republicans likely to gain up to 2 seats.

Last fall, Ohio Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman publicly rebuffed Trump’s national push to gain more seats in Congress, while state Democrats proposed their own maps. An Ohio redistricting commission eventually approved a new map last October that is likely to yield 12 Republicans and three Democrats, compared with the current 10-5 split. GOP and Democratic lawmakers called it a “compromise.”

That map will be in place for the next six years. But political operatives told the Ohio Capital Journal they expect to see more redistricting efforts in 2030.

Tennessee

Republicans likely to gain 1 seat.

In a chaotic special session earlier this month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee redrew congressional maps to shatter the state’s only majority-Black, majority-Democratic district. The newly passed map now favors Republicans in all nine Tennessee districts. Hundreds protested at the Tennessee statehouse as House Republicans voted on the new map and House Democrats gathered at the front of the chamber, locking arms in a show of solidarity.

This week, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, punished his Democratic colleagues for their protests by stripping them of committee and subcommittee appointments. On Friday morning, longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen announced he would not seek reelection after his district was carved up in the redrawing of the maps.

Texas

Republicans likely to gain 3-5 seats.

The nation’s redistricting battle kicked off in Texas last summer, after Trump pressured the Texas GOP to redraw the state’s congressional map to add up to five more Republican seats. State House Democrats pushed back, fleeing the state temporarily in August to halt the vote. But the map eventually passed after they returned. Civil rights groups sued, saying the new map was racially discriminatory.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court permanently upheld the new map, ensuring it remains in place for the 2026 midterms.

Utah

Democrats likely to gain 1 seat.

In 2018, Utah voters approved an anti-gerrymandering ballot measure that created an independent redistricting process, but Utah’s Republican-dominated legislature repealed and replaced it in 2021. Voters rights groups sued, arguing the resulting new map was a partisan gerrymander.

Eventually, after a multi-year legal battle, a new court-ordered map in 2025 gives Democrats a chance to win one of the state’s four congressional districts. The Utah GOP proposed a ballot initiative this year to ask Utah voters to officially repeal the 2018 anti-gerrymandering law, but it failed last month after thousands of petition signers removed their signatures.

Three states are in the process of redrawing their maps

Georgia

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has refused to pursue redistricting ahead of this year’s elections, which are already underway. But Kemp announced Wednesday that he will call a special session to redraw the state’s political maps for the 2028 elections. Georgia’s congressional delegation currently has nine Republicans and five Democrats.

Louisiana

Republicans could gain 1 seat.

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s existing congressional districts as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the state’s congressional primaries to give lawmakers enough time to pass new maps.

This week, in a nearly 10-hour overnight committee hearing, Louisiana lawmakers advanced a bill that would eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black districts. The new map, if it passes, likely would give Republicans another seat in Congress.

The new map must win approval from both chambers by June 1. Litigation over the decision to delay primaries is ongoing.

South Carolina

Republicans could gain 1 seat.

South Carolina legislators will gather Friday for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional lines just 12 days before early voting opens. Lawmakers have set a deadline of May 26 to pass a new map. Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who previously said the matter was for the legislature to decide, called for the special session under pressure from the White House and state GOP.

The South Carolina GOP’s goal is to pass a bill that would delay U.S. House race primaries until August while keeping other primaries on schedule for June. One proposed map would cut South Carolina’s lone congressional Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, out of the seat he’s represented since 1992 and create all seven Republican seats.

At least a half dozen other states are interested in redrawing their maps

Mississippi

This week, Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session he’d called to redraw districts for the state’s Supreme Court. Some GOP officials had hoped he’d add congressional redistricting to the agenda. Instead, he said this week, he’s working with Trump and the White House on a plan to redraw Mississippi’s congressional districts and legislative districts in the future. Reeves wants a map that would boot the lone Democrat in Mississippi’s U.S. House delegation, Rep. Bennie Thompson, from his seat.

If that happens, Republicans would likely gain one congressional seat.

Virginia

The Virginia Supreme Court earlier this month struck down a voter-approved redistricting amendment that could have given Democrats a 10-1 advantage in the state’s U.S. House delegation. Virginia voters last month had approved a referendum that would have netted Democrats three or four additional seats. Earlier this week, Virginia Democrats asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the amendment, in a case that’s ongoing.

Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Washington 

Officials in Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Washington all have suggested drawing new maps following the Callais decision, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Colorado Voting Rights Act, passed last year by the state’s Democratic-majority legislature, will likely prevent the state from embarking on a redistricting effort. The state’s congressional delegation is currently split 4-4 between Democrats and Republicans. But a Democratic-led group is gathering signatures for ballot measures that would allow the state to change its maps ahead of the 2028 election.

*Seat gain predictions from The Cook Political Report.

This story was updated to include the Friday morning announcement by Tennessee Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen that he will not seek reelection. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri — Control of the U.S. House may run through a courtroom in Missouri.

In a red brick courthouse across the street from the state Capitol, the seven black-robed judges of the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday morning weighed the fate of a Republican gerrymander aimed at ousting U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a 11-term Democrat from Kansas City.

In the afternoon, they upheld the map.

Its opponents “failed to show the 2025 Map clearly and undoubtedly violates the requirements” of the state constitution, the court ruled hours after holding oral arguments.

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s late April decision sharply curtailing the use of race in redistricting, much of the legal fight over gerrymandering is moving to state courts. The decision, Louisiana vs. Callais, gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which limited states’ ability to divide districts where a majority of residents belong to a racial minority group.

Southern Republican states have rushed forward new maps over the past two weeks that take advantage of the landmark opinion, adding to a handful of others, including Missouri, that already drew new lines in recent months at President Donald Trump’s behest before the midterms elections this November. Another wave of gerrymanders across the rest of the country will likely follow next year ahead of the 2028 election.

State supreme courts may have the final word on some of the maps. Even if the maps don’t involve issues decided in Callais, like the challenge in Missouri, many states have constitutional or statutory provisions that curb gerrymandering and limit last-minute changes to elections — providing gerrymandering opponents with grounds to challenge new district boundaries.

With federal redistricting lawsuits increasingly difficult, state laws offer gerrymandering opponents another path. 

Thirty states have some form of a constitutional requirement for free elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And at least 10 state supreme courts have found that state courts can decide cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering, according to a 2024 review by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

“I think state courts are primarily going to be the place where future fights around these maps are playing out in a post-Callais landscape,” said Alicia Bannon, director of the judiciary program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Legal challenges abound

The elevated importance of state courts was on full display Friday, when the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated an election in which voters narrowly approved a Democratic map. The decision leaves a new map in California as the party’s only successful response so far to the GOP redistricting onslaught. Democrats have made a longshot request to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Virginia ruling.

Lawsuits have already been filed in state courts over new maps in Florida and Louisiana. Alabama’s new map could also face a legal challenge in state court, even after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the gerrymander to take effect. 

At stake in these courtroom fights is which party will control the U.S. House over the next two years, earning the power to advance or thwart legislation. While Democrats remain generally favored to retake the chamber in the November midterm elections, Republicans will likely emerge from the gerrymandering war with at least a handful of seats secured.

Suddenly, every state supreme court decision — including over a single seat in Missouri — takes on greater significance.

Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, which is helping challenge the Missouri map, told reporters on Monday that the state’s high court had a “spotlight on” it.

“Is the court going to do what it has done in the past in a nonpartisan way that is faithful to their own precedent,” she asked ahead of the decision. “Or are they going to roll over?”

Missouri case

The Republican-controlled Missouri General Assembly in September approved a map intended to leave the state with just one Democrat in Congress, in the St. Louis area. Kansas City was divided among three districts, splitting apart its Democratic-leaning and racially diverse core. 

The Missouri Supreme Court considered three challenges to the map. Two similar lawsuits argue that some of the congressional districts don’t follow the state constitution’s requirements that districts be as compact as possible.

A third lawsuit argues that the map shouldn’t be in effect for the 2026 election because opponents in December submitted more than 305,000 signatures seeking to force a statewide referendum vote on the lines. In the past, state officials have paused the implementation of measures subject to a referendum until a vote is held, but in this instance they say the new lines are active.

During Tuesday’s oral arguments, the judges sat almost entirely stone-faced as they listened. Only one judge asked a single question during arguments that stretched for more than an hour, offering no sense of how the court would rule.

“There is no such thing as a perfect map or a perfect district,” Missouri Principal Deputy Solicitor General Kathleen Hunker said.

Jonathan Hawley, an attorney representing Missouri voters who argue the referendum means the map isn’t in effect, said his case will decide whether the people of Missouri “still have a meaningful referendum.”

“The referendum right is the people’s veto,” Hawley said.

The Missouri Supreme Court hours later ruled against both challenges to the maps — allowing the new lines to be used this year.

“Had the drafters intended a referendum petition filing to automatically suspend any act of the General Assembly at issue in the referendum petition, they would have so stated,” the court’s opinion says.

Florida’s GOP gerrymander

Only two Southern states, Florida and Kentucky, allow courts to decide partisan gerrymandering cases.

Kentucky, which has a Democratic governor, hasn’t taken up redistricting this year. But a Florida Supreme Court decision striking down a new map there would effectively offset Democrats’ loss at the Virginia Supreme Court.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a map passed by the state legislature during a special session on the same day as the Callais decision. The new congressional boundaries are designed to hand Republicans up to four additional seats.

Several voting rights groups have sued, alleging the map violates the Florida Constitution. A 2010 amendment approved by voters prohibits districts drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.

“Instead of abiding by this law, the Legislature is defying the will of voters and backing a map that was crafted entirely with partisan intent,” Simone Leeper, senior legal counsel for redistricting at Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement. 

The Campaign Legal Center and the UCLA Voting Rights Project have sued jointly over the map.

DeSantis’s office told state lawmakers ahead of this year’s special session that the 2010 amendment requires the state legislature to account for race when drawing districts — and that the provisions regarding race can’t be severed from the rest of the amendment. In effect, DeSantis contends the whole amendment must be thrown out.

The Florida governor’s pitch, coupled with the Callais decision, persuaded GOP lawmakers.

“I have a ton of comfort because the Callais decision came out,” Florida state Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, said. “I got to read it, and it perfectly summarizes exactly why we could, and should, change our 2022 maps.”

Map opponents’ chance of success at the Florida Supreme Court is unclear. The court as recently as 2015 blocked a congressional map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, but it has moved to the right in the years since. Six of the seven current justices were appointed by DeSantis and the other was appointed by a different Republican governor.

“The composition of the Florida Supreme Court has changed dramatically since that earlier ruling,” Bannon, the Brennan Center expert, said. “So I think there are questions about will the court be as open to those arguments.”

Process challenges

In other Southern states, map opponents are turning to arguments beside partisan gerrymandering.

The Tennessee chapter of the NAACP has sued Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the state General Assembly to block a gerrymander passed last week from taking effect. The organization alleges Lee violated the state constitution in how he called a special session for a new map. 

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, has urged a court to dismiss Lee and the legislature from lawsuit because they don’t conduct elections.

Alabama Democrats and voting rights groups are weighing a legal challenge to a new map that would focus on a 2022 amendment to the state constitution. The amendment requires election law changes to be made at least six months before a general election — a deadline of May 3 this year. Alabama’s redistricting special session began the next day.

In Louisiana, state lawmakers have not yet passed a new map after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current lines as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the legislature had previously created a second majority-Black district. Lawmakers are expected to advance a map aimed at ousting one of the state’s two Democratic House members, who are both Black.

After the Callais decision, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the state’s congressional primary elections although roughly 42,000 absentee ballots had already been cast. Lawsuits challenging the suspension have been filed in both federal and state court.

Too late to change?

In Missouri on Tuesday, lawyers for Republican state officials took the opposite approach, urging the state supreme court to keep the map in place for the 2026 election, even if the judges strike it down. Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, told reporters afterward that preventing the state from using the map now would lead to confusion, even as 12 weeks remain before the primary election.

“It’ll be disarray for the people that have been going to town halls and listening to candidates,” Hoskins said. “It would be disarray for the candidates that are running and going out and meeting voters in their district. And it’d be disarray for the local election authorities and county clerks that have already started instituting” the new map.

Hoskins’ fears turned out to be unfounded, as the court upheld the map.

Cleaver, who is running for reelection, has said that his work ethic or commitment to voters won’t change regardless of his district boundaries. 

“If I have to serve the people who live just outside of Columbia and Jefferson City, then I’ll do that,” he said when he filed to run earlier this year.

Attorneys for the ACLU of Missouri, which supported challenges to the map, said it was unfair to Missouri residents for the state to create a problem and then argue it’s too late to change it. 

At a rally outside the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday, ACLU of Missouri Policy Director Tori Schafer expressed confidence the judges would side with map opponents — hours before they allowed the lines to move forward.

“But let me clear,” Schafer said, “democracy did not begin in a courtroom and it will not be saved in a courtroom.”

Florida Phoenix reporter Mitch Perry contributed to this report.

The Supreme Court of Virginia on Friday struck down the voter-approved redistricting amendment, upholding a lower court ruling that had declared the measure unconstitutional less than 24 hours after last week’s special election and briefly halted its implementation.

State Democrats later said they would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The high court found that the amendment itself was flawed because lawmakers approved the proposal after voting had already started in the 2025 House of Delegates elections, depriving more than 1.3 million Virginians of an opportunity to weigh the issue when choosing their representatives.

Virginia voters back redistricting amendment after months of legal and political battles

The 4-3 ruling leaves the state’s current congressional districts — which give Democrats a 6-5 advantage — in place throughout the 2026 midterm election and the rest of the decade, instead of proposed districts that Democrats believed could produce a 10-1 advantage.  

The decision affirms the ruling by a Tazewell County judge who had blocked the amendment, siding with Republican challengers who argued the General Assembly failed to follow required constitutional procedures. 

In the opinion, the justices said Article XII, Section 1 of Virginia’s constitution requires “an intervening general election” between the legislature’s first and second approvals of a constitutional amendment so voters can evaluate candidates based on their stance on the proposal.

“The purpose of Article XII, Section 1 is to give voters the opportunity to participate in the process of amending their Constitution,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote for the majority. “The commonwealth in this case … ended up denying over 1.3 million Virginians their constitutional right to have a voice in the debate over whether their Constitution should be amended.” 

State Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, the Senate Republican leader and one of the appellees in the case, praised the ruling as a reaffirmation of Virginia’s constitutional process.

“The Supreme Court ruling today affirms what we all know: you cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution,” McDougle said in a statement. He added that the decision showed “even the General Assembly must follow the law.”

McDougle called the ruling “not a partisan one — it is a constitutional one” and said “every Virginian wins.”

House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, another appellee, praised the decision as a reaffirmation that constitutional amendment procedures must be strictly followed regardless of political considerations.

“Today’s ruling establishes once again that the Constitution of Virginia means what it says,” Kilgore said in a statement. 

“The rule of law requires that Virginians have an opportunity to review a constitutional amendment before they vote for the House of Delegates in a meaningful way. You cannot violate the constitution to amend the constitution.”

And Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee, which had filed an amicus brief in the case and brought a similar challenge, accused Democrats of trying to redraw Virginia’s congressional districts for political advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms.

“Democrats just learned that when you try to rig elections, you lose,” Gruters said in a statement. “Today, the Virginia Supreme Court sided with the rule of law and struck down Democrats’ unconstitutional maps.”

Gruters said the RNC had “led the charge in court against this blatant power grab” and accused Democrats of spending “more than $66 million into an effort to lock in control and silence voters.”

Meanwhile, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones criticized the ruling and said the state is still considering its legal options.

“Today the Supreme Court of Virginia has chosen to put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21 special election on redistricting,” Jones said in a statement. “This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the commonwealth.”

Jones defended the amendment process as “timely, constitutionally-compliant, and legally sound,” and accused the court’s Republican-appointed majority of “contort[ing] the plain language of the Constitution and Code of Virginia.”

He said his office is “evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections.”

By Friday afternoon, state Democrats made a filing asking the high court to delay enforcing its ruling, suggesting they would pursue an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

“Appellants and the Commonwealth intend to file an emergency petition to the Supreme Court of the United States,” the court document read.

But Carl Tobias,  a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States would face significant practical and legal obstacles, particularly this late in the court’s term and so close to the 2026 elections.

“It is very late in the SCOTUS term for the U.S. Supreme Court justices to give an appeal a full-dress treatment, and the justices are often reluctant to rule on voting disputes as elections approach,” Tobias said. 

“However, this is an important case, so it may be possible that SCOTUS would entertain an appeal.” He added that the nation’s highest court “may also be reluctant to second guess the interpretation of Virginia’s Constitution by a 4-3 majority of the Virginia Supreme Court justices.”

The court’s decision comes twelve days after justices heard oral arguments in the case, pressing attorneys on whether lawmakers complied with constitutional requirements governing amendments. 

At issue was whether Democrats had lawfully advanced the amendment through the required legislative process before sending it to voters. 

The case focused on disputes over whether there was a valid intervening General Election between legislative approvals, whether the public received the required notice ahead of the November election, and whether the amendment could legally be taken up during a special session initially called to address changes to the state budget. 

During arguments, Justice Wesley G. Russell Jr. questioned both sides closely, probing the limits of legislative authority and whether alleged procedural defects should invalidate the measure already approved by the voters. 

The morning after the hearing, the court denied a request by the Virginia Department of Elections to stay Tazewell County’s April 22 order while it continued to consider the case. 

House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, one of the chief architects of the amendment, said Friday that while he respects the court’s decision, the referendum still reflected the will of millions of Virginians who backed the measure at the ballot box.

“Three million people voted in a free and fair election,” Scott said in a statement. “We gave this decision to the voters — exactly where it belongs — and they spoke loud and clear.” 

He added that supporters would “keep fighting for a democracy where voters — not politicians — have the final say.”

President Donald Trump weighed in on his Truth Social network, calling the ruling a “Huge win for the Republican Party, and America, in Virginia.”

GOP challenges test limits of amendment process

The lawsuit was filed in October by Republican lawmakers and a member of Virginia’s redistricting commission. Plaintiffs included state Sens. Ryan McDougle of Hanover and Bill Stanley of Franklin, Del. Terry Kilgore of Scott, and Commissioner Virginia Trost Thornton. 

They argued that the legislature overstepped its authority and failed to follow the constitutionally mandated process, which requires amendments to pass the General Assembly twice with an intervening General Election before going to voters. 

Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley agreed in January, ruling that the amendment process was flawed. 

The state appealed, and while the Supreme Court allowed the referendum to proceed ahead of the April 21 vote, it did not immediately resolve the underlying legal questions, setting the stage for a post-election hearing and this week’s decision. 

The case has drawn national attention as both parties look ahead to the 2026 midterms, when control of the U.S. House could come down to a small number of competitive districts. 

Virginia’s attempt to redraw congressional districts outside the normal post-census cycle became part of a broader national push by both parties to revisit House maps ahead of the midterms. The effort gained momentum after Trump encouraged Republican-led states, beginning with Texas, to pursue similar redistricting moves.  

The lower court’s ruling April 22 briefly halted those plans in Virginia.

Hurley found lawmakers exceeded the scope of the special session in which the amendment was first introduced, failed to meet public notice requirements and did not properly satisfy the intervening election requirement. 

Friday’s ruling from the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed that decision, although it remains unclear if the ruling will be viewed as a precedent for two related cases currently moving through the court system, or whether these cases will be taken up separately by the high court.

David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg, said the ruling represents both a political blow to Democrats and a broader affirmation that constitutional procedures still matter, regardless of the political stakes involved.

“The Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling today is an obvious setback for the Democrats, but it is also a win for making the state government pay closer attention to the rules,” Richards said. 

“The whole referendum was hastily put together, and this is the result we get — so much time and money wasted in an effort to work around the rules and a districting system that the voters had just approved a few years earlier.” 

He added that while “it may not be the outcome some people wanted,” the court “was right not to give in to pressure and instead soberly look at the process.”

From late-October push to legal showdown

The redistricting battle began on Oct. 27, just days before the Nov. 4 state elections, when Democratic lawmakers introduced a constitutional amendment during a special session of the General Assembly that would allow congressional districts to be redrawn outside of the once-in-a-decade redistricting cycle tied to the census. 

The proposal immediately sparked partisan fights over both the timing of the amendment and Democrats’ push to redraw Virginia’s congressional map ahead of the midterms. 

The House advanced the proposal the next day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 along party lines, pushing it forward as required by the multi-step constitutional process, which required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent session. 

When lawmakers returned to Richmond in January, they approved the legislation a second time, but the measure soon became entangled in legal challenges. 

After Hurley first ruled the amendment invalid, the Supreme Court of Virginia intervened, allowing the referendum to proceed despite the lower court ruling. At the time, justices made clear they were not resolving the broader legal questions, only ensuring that voters would have the opportunity to weigh in. 

The court’s earlier decision to allow the referendum onto the ballot led many legal observers to believe the amendment would likely survive if voters approved it. 

As the legal fight continued, Democrats began outlining what the new congressional districts would look like. A proposed map released in early February that would likely favor them in most of Virginia’s 11 districts.

Republicans escalated their opposition soon after, filing additional legal challenges and seeking to block the vote. A temporary restraining order by the Tazewell County court applied locally, but the Supreme Court again stepped in to stay that order, allowing the referendum to proceed statewide. 

Heated campaigns culminate in close final margin 

The fight over the amendment intensified in the weeks leading up to the vote.

Outside groups backing both sides poured millions of dollars into the campaign in March, flooding voters with ads and mailers. Some of the messaging drew criticism for using civil rights-era imagery.

Civil rights imagery in anti-redistricting mailers draws outrage in Virginia

Both parties expanded outreach efforts as early voting data showed strong turnout in Republican-leaning parts of the state, making the final outcome harder to predict. 

In the final days of the campaign, Gov. Abigail Spanberger ramped up her public support for the amendment while former Gov. Glenn Youngkin urged voters to reject the measure and continued pressing the courts to block the measure. 

Spanberger said Friday she was disappointed by the ruling but emphasized that voters will still ultimately decide the balance of political power in the 2026 midterm elections.

“More than three million Virginians cast their ballots in Virginia’s redistricting referendum, and the majority of Virginia voters voted to push back against a president who said he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress with a temporary and responsive referendum,” Spanberger said in a statement. “They made their voices heard.”

She added that while she disagreed with the court’s decision, her administration’s focus would now shift toward voter participation in the upcoming elections. 

Voters ultimately approved the amendment by roughly three percentage points April 21, before the dispute returned to the Supreme Court. 

With the Supreme Court’s decision now in place, the new congressional maps will not take effect, leaving Virginia’s current districts in place until a previously passed amendment requires the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission to draw new maps following the 2030 census. 

Editor’s note: This is a breaking news story that will be updated as more information becomes available. 

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court crippled the federal Voting Rights Act, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson addressed a virtual gathering for the group’s members and supporters where he ranked the landmark decision alongside the court’s most infamous cases.

Dred Scott excluded Black people from American citizenship ahead of the Civil War. Plessy blessed policies of racial segregation in 1896. And now there was Callais. 

The opinion will “probably go down in the history book as one of three of the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of this nation,” Johnson said.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana vs. Callais on April 29 cleared states to split apart, for political gain, congressional districts where a majority of residents belong to minority groups. The court’s conservative majority said Louisiana lawmakers acted unconstitutionally when they intentionally created the state’s second majority-Black district, which the justices found unnecessary.

A week after its release, the decision is roiling politics across the South as states move at a rapid pace to recast the political landscape that has taken progressives by surprise. 

Republicans, triumphant over their victory at the court, are rushing fresh gerrymanders through Southern statehouses in time for the November midterm elections in an effort to strengthen their party’s control over the region’s U.S. House delegations. They’re acting at lightning speed, over loud protests, and have nullified votes by suspending ongoing elections.

Democrats, especially Black residents, are furious with both the court and GOP politicians, who they believe are poised to wipe away decades of Black political progress in the region. The new maps that seek to oust Black members of Congress and prevent the election of Democrats in the future recall a Jim Crow past of literacy tests and poll taxes, they say.

“We refuse to let you kill us by killing our vote,” Eliza Jane Franklin, a resident of rural Barbour County, Alabama, told a state House hearing Tuesday.

Decision kicked off legislative efforts

The Alabama Legislature is moving to authorize a special primary election using a congressional map currently blocked in federal court, if a district court or, ultimately, the Supreme Court allows the state to move forward. At least one of the state’s two Black members of the U.S. House would be vulnerable.

In Louisiana, the governor has suspended the state’s primary elections for the U.S. House, setting aside some 42,000 votes that were already cast. Republican lawmakers will begin advancing a new gerrymander in a matter of days, aiming to force out at least one of the state’s two Black House members.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new map into law Monday that aims to hand his party up to four additional U.S. House seats. State lawmakers approved the map hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. The map has already drawn multiple legal challenges.

The South Carolina Legislature is weighing whether to redraw maps. And Tennessee lawmakers want to gerrymander a Memphis district currently held by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a white Democrat who represents the state’s only majority-Black district. 

“The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind,” Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday unveiling a plan to divide the Memphis area among three congressional seats.

More states, in the South and elsewhere, are expected to pursue new maps over the next two years. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp ruled out a special session this year, for example, but supports redistricting before the 2028 election. 

The current moment represents an extraordinary time in America, said Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group. But she also called it a reversion “back to America.”

Many thought the presence of Black, Hispanic and Asian American elected officials somehow meant racial discrimination no longer existed, she said.

“And unfortunately, that is a misread of American history,” Caruthers said. “And perhaps it is a retelling of American history for those who want to gloss over America’s very sordid past, especially when it comes to voting rights.”

Midterms impact

The scramble by a handful of Southern states to redraw districts comes as Republicans grasp for any scintilla of advantage ahead of the midterm elections in November. 

A U.S. House under Democratic control would spell the end of much of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, produce a wave of investigations into his administration and potentially lead to a vote to impeach him in the House, though the Senate would almost certainly acquit him.

“This is all about Donald Trump wanting to avoid hard questions and oversight hearings about his actions,” Cohen said at a news conference in Memphis.

Seth McKee, a political science professor at Oklahoma State University who has studied Southern politics, said Republicans are attempting to “staunch the bleeding” ahead of unfavorable midterm elections.

“The desperation of this Republican Party, it’s off the charts,” McKee said.

Redistricting push supercharged

Prior to Callais, Trump had already urged Republicans to redraw congressional maps for partisan advantage — a process that typically occurs once a decade after the census. 

Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas enacted more GOP-friendly maps, while Democrats struck back in California and Virginia. In Utah, Republicans want to block a court-ordered map that’s more favorable to Democrats.

Republican primary voters have given their approval to that approach. On Tuesday, five Trump-endorsed state legislative candidates in Indiana defeated GOP incumbents who had defied the president to block a gerrymander in the state last year.

But until now the Voting Rights Act limited how far that gerrymandering push could extend.

For decades, Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act helped protect majority-minority districts from gerrymandering and ensured voters could elect Black candidates to Congress in Southern states following the end of state laws that blocked Black citizens from voting. The Callais opinion guts Section 2 by curtailing the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps.

Republicans have praised the decision and many have been clear that they believe the opinion opens up a path to securing additional GOP seats. Trump has endorsed disregarding primary elections that have already been held so that states can pass new maps — which he predicts can net Republicans an additional 20 seats this fall.

“We cannot allow there to be an Election that is conducted unconstitutionally simply for the ‘convenience’ of State Legislatures,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If they have to vote twice, so be it.”

Calls for GOP seats

Over the past week, some Republicans have cast majority-minority districts previously protected by the Voting Rights Act as racist because they were drawn with attention paid to the racial makeup of the map. U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, wrote on X that there are “no more excuses for keeping racist maps,” for example, and called for their immediate removal.

Other GOP leaders have centered their case for quick action on political power. Like Trump, they have explicitly invoked control of the U.S. House as a reason to gerrymander. While Republicans have the House, their margin of control is razor thin: 217 to 212, with one independent and five vacancies. Even a modest Democratic wave in November will likely sweep away GOP control.

Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger Jr. and House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said in a joint statement that the state’s lawmakers have a responsibility to offer Alabama a “fighting chance” to elect seven Republican U.S. representatives. Two of the state’s seven districts are held by Democrats.

“Control of the U.S. House of Representatives could come down to just a handful of seats, and when the dust settles, the people of Alabama will know that their Legislature stood firm, acted decisively, and did everything within its power to fight for fair representation,” Gudger and Ledbetter said.

Alabama Republicans want to use a map passed by lawmakers in 2023 that federal courts blocked from taking effect. Alabama’s current map was drawn by a court-appointed special master.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, asked a federal district court Tuesday for an order that would let the state move forward with the gerrymander.

In Louisiana, Republicans obtained special permission from the Supreme Court to quickly move forward on a new gerrymander after the justices struck down its current map in the Callais decision.

Absentee voting was already underway in Louisiana before Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended congressional primary elections set for May 16. Votes already cast for U.S. House candidates won’t count, Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, no relation, has said.

Louisiana state lawmakers are set to begin work on a new map this month that will likely break apart a New Orleans district held by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Black Democrat who has fought with the governor.

“The Court’s decision in these cases has spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent of the decision to quickly finalize Callais.

Court challenges

Still, Democrats and other opponents of the gerrymandering effort across the South are turning to the courts. Lawsuits have also been filed challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primaries and Florida’s new map also faces court challenges.

A petition filed in Louisiana state court by Elias Law Group, a major Democrat-aligned voting rights litigation firm, alleges the governor’s decision to halt the congressional primary is unlawful and unprecedented. Only the state legislature has the power to set the state’s election schedule, the petition argues.

“Governors do not get to cancel elections by executive fiat, least of all elections that are already underway, with ballots in voters’ hands and votes already cast,” Lali Madduri, a partner at Elias Law Group, said in a statement.

Regardless of how the legal challenges play out, Democrats say the Callais decision and the ongoing fallout from the decision underscore the need for massive voter turnout in the November election. A large Democratic turnout that results in a significant Democratic majority in the U.S. House would serve as a rebuke to Trump’s gerrymandering campaign, they say.

Blue state gerrymanders

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, South Carolina’s sole congressional Democrat, said during the NAACP virtual meeting that a Democratic House could pass voting rights legislation. 

“I would hope we could do that because I really think that’s our only hope legislatively,” Clyburn said.

Democrats have long called for the passage of a bill to restore preclearance, a major element of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court paused in 2013, which required states and local governments with a history of racial discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes. 

But the measure would face a certain filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Even if Democrats broke a filibuster, Trump would likely veto it. 

In effect, Democrats’ most realistic opportunity to enact major voting rights legislation relies on regaining control of the White House and Congress and ending the filibuster — a set of conditions that’s out of reach until at least 2029.

In the meantime, more Democrats are calling for aggressive gerrymandering of blue states as a way to punch back. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Joseph Morelle, both New York Democrats, on Monday announced an initiative to encourage their state to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2028 election.

Gerrymandering New York would be an intensive effort, likely requiring voters to repeal or suspend anti-gerrymandering provisions in the state constitution. But voters in California and Virginia have previously endorsed Democratic gerrymanders.

“This is just the beginning,” Jeffries said in a statement. “Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw and we will win.”

Louisiana is not experiencing ordinary political turbulence. We are watching democratic instability unfold in real time.

Within a matter of days, voters across this state have been forced to absorb three major disruptions at once: the dismantling of Black voting representation through the ruling in Louisiana v. Callais; the suspension of congressional primary elections already in progress; and a statewide constitutional amendment that could fundamentally reshape public education in East Baton Rouge Parish and beyond.

The timing could not be more critical. Election Day is May 16. Early voting began Saturday. Absentee ballots have already been distributed. Yet Gov. Jeff Landry’s executive order suspended Louisiana’s closed party congressional primaries after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the state’s congressional map. 

Voters are now left in a vacuum of information, told that congressional races will still appear on their ballots, but that their votes in these contests won’t count.

That should alarm every person in this state, regardless of party affiliation.

A democracy cannot function when election rules shift after the machinery of voting has already begun moving. This creates confusion and distrust precisely when public confidence is most fragile. 

Black communities, in particular, understand the historical weight of sudden procedural changes in elections. Louisiana does not get to separate this moment from that history.

This erosion of collective representation is not limited to the ballot box. It is also manifesting in the very structure of our local institutions. 

On the May 16 ballot voters are being asked to decide on Constitutional Amendment 2, which would formally recognize the St. George Community School System with independent authority to receive state funding and raise local revenues though taxes.

When coupled with its implementing legislation, the amendment mandates the transfer of public school lands, facilities and assets from the East Baton Rouge Parish School System to the new St. George system by June 30, 2027. Reports indicate that East Baton Rouge schools could lose roughly $100 million if this separation proceeds.

This is bigger than one city, one amendment or one election cycle. This is about fragmentation: the fragmentation of voting rights, public education and, ultimately, public trust. The people most harmed by this fracturing are always the communities with the fewest resources to absorb the blow: Black families, working-class families, disabled residents and children already navigating underfunded schools.

Supporters of these measures frame them as issues of local control or administrative necessity. But language matters less than outcomes. When systems repeatedly reorganize power away from collective accountability and toward isolated control structures, inequity expands. History has shown us this repeatedly.

The most dangerous part is how normalized this chaos is becoming. Louisianans are being conditioned to accept government by disruption. Maps change overnight, elections pause midstream, public assets become bargaining chips. 

That is not healthy governance. That is democratic erosion dressed in procedural language.

The people of Louisiana deserve clarity before elections begin, not after. They deserve stable representation and public institutions designed to serve communities rather than divide them into competing islands of power. Because once citizens begin believing their vote is conditional, their schools are negotiable, and their representation is disposable, democracy itself begins to fracture.

And fractured systems rarely fail equally.

Responding to President Donald Trump’s pressure, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has called a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House map as the party tries to eliminate the only Democratic-held seat in Memphis.

Lee is calling on state lawmakers to return to the state Capitol on May 5 to pass a new Tennessee U.S. congressional district map, less than two weeks after the state legislature wrapped its annual session.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that no longer requires Tennessee and other southern states to create majority-minority districts in their U.S. House and state legislature district maps.

Tennessee, with a Black population of around 16%, was previously required by the Voting Rights Act to draw at least one of its nine congressional districts as majority-minority, effectively helping Democrats hold on to a Memphis-based seat.

“We owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters,” said Lee in a news release. “After consultation with the Lt. Governor, Speaker of the House, Attorney General, and Secretary of State, I believe the General Assembly has a responsibility to review the map and ensure it remains fair, legal, and defensible.”

Lawmakers need to move fast to change the maps before the 2026 midterm elections, as Tennessee’s Congressional primaries will be held on Aug. 6. The qualifying deadline to run in those elections has already passed, and campaigns are in full swing

Republicans currently hold an 8-1 advantage in congressional seats over Democrats. Tennessee is a Republican stronghold that Trump won with around 64% of the vote in 2024. But if party representation were equally distributed without gerrymandering, Democrats would likely hold two or three of the state’s U.S. House seats.

The Republican advantage is even stronger in the state legislature. Republicans control 75% of the state House seats and 81% of the state Senate.

Tennessee Republicans in 2022 were legally able to eliminate a Democratic-held seat in Nashville by splitting it across three congressional districts. This led Democrats to lose the 5th district seat, which the party had held since the end of the 1870s Reconstruction era.

Tennessee U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican running for governor this year, shared a photo on social media of a map showing the GOP winning all nine congressional districts by large margins.

The Lookout, using the nonpartisan Dave’s Redistricting, was able to replicate a similar map to the one Blackburn proposed, but not with the same margins she posted. Based on the 2024 Presidential election, Republicans could achieve a 9-0 outcome, essentially cracking Nashville and Memphis, but would shrink their margins in almost every district.

The map created by the Lookout shows nine districts where Republicans won 60% of the vote based on the 2024 Presidential election. But now six districts would have Republican advantages of less than 12 percentage points, compared to the current two.

Blackburn’s map appears to be based on the 2024 presidential election margin, not the Republican percentage of the vote over 50%, which is how nonpartisan organizations like Cook Political Report rate districts.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

After the U.S. Supreme Court severely weakened the federal Voting Rights Act in an April 29 decision, a furious U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned what he called an “illegitimate” conservative majority on the court.

“This isn’t even the Roberts Court,” Jeffries said, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts. “It’s the Trump Court.”

Democrats are renewing their calls to overhaul the Supreme Court in the wake of the court’s decision, which empowers states to gerrymander congressional maps in ways that will break apart districts where a majority of residents are Black, Hispanic or belong to other minority groups. 

The momentous opinion overturned the reasoning behind decades of court cases that relied on the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a law born of efforts to stamp out Jim Crow voting laws in the South, to protect these majority-minority districts.

For years, critics of the court, where conservatives enjoy a 6-3 majority, have pushed for changes. Those efforts often center on expanding the size of the court to dilute the influence of the majority or imposing term limits on the justices, though other ideas, like narrowing the kinds of cases the court can consider, have also been discussed.

But the April 29 decision seems to be the last straw for some Democrats and progressives, though they are unlikely to be able to force any of the changes on their wishlist — at least for a long time. 

After rulings in recent years that ended the federal right to an abortion and handed President Donald Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution while in office, they are fed up with a court they view as unmoored from the law and ruling based on politics.

“We cannot protect voting rights, civil rights or the environment as long as we have a Supreme Court majority that is captured by MAGA authoritarians,” Doug Lindner, senior director of judiciary and democracy at the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental advocacy group, told reporters on Thursday. “We need to take back our Supreme Court.”

Any effort to impose significant changes at the court will encounter stiff Republican opposition. GOP lawmakers have praised the court’s latest decision and some see long-serving Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito as conservative icons. Unless Democrats win 60 seats in the Senate or eliminate the filibuster, Congress is highly unlikely to pass a major overhaul.

Republicans have denounced past proposals to change the court. After President Joe Biden proposed 18-year terms for justices and other changes in July 2024, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the plan “would tilt the balance of power and erode not only the rule of law, but the American people’s faith in our system of justice.”

No action under Biden

Supreme Court reform has long percolated as an issue among Democrats and progressives, but picked up steam during the 2020 presidential primary campaign. 

The court’s ideological makeup had already moved toward conservatives after Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote on key decisions, retired in 2018 and was replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative. Republicans then cemented a firm 6-3 majority on the court in the fall of 2020 after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal, died and was replaced by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Campaigning for president, then-candidate Biden voiced support for a presidential commission that would study court reform. After winning election, Biden named a blue ribbon panel of law professors, former judges and other lawyers, which issued a final report in December 2021.

The commission’s report stopped short of endorsing structural changes. It took no position on expanding the size of the court from nine members, citing “profound disagreement” among commission members over the idea. The commission also adopted no stance on term limits for justices.

The report was essentially put on a shelf — Biden made no serious effort to advance a court overhaul, though he later proposed some reforms after ending his campaign for reelection.

Public opinion dropping

Americans’ view of the Supreme Court has been falling. An August 2025 Pew Research Center survey found 48% of Americans hold a favorable view of the court, a 22-percentage point drop from August 2020.

A survey released in September 2025 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found 69% support for term limits but only 31% support for expanding the size of the court.

Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and the executive director of the Emmet J. Bondurant Center for Constitutional Law, Practice and Democracy, said past courts would have been responsive to the prospect of legislation, but the current court isn’t swayed by public opinion.

In some cases the court tries to preserve its legitimacy by giving the other side a win, Segall said, but in general the court’s decisions since 2018, when Kennedy retired, can be explained by viewing the court as a subset of the Republican Party.

“This court is defined by the Republican Party,” he said.

Segall has called for dividing the court evenly between conservative and liberal appointees. An evenly-split court would encourage greater compromise among the justices, he contends. He also supports expanding the court and term limits if possible. But he bluntly predicted court reform wouldn’t happen in his lifetime.

“If Democrats have the power to do it, they won’t do it,” Segall said.

Action unlikely, at least in short term

Jeffries, who will likely become U.S. House speaker if Democrats retake the chamber in the November midterm elections, said this week that “everything was on the table” in terms of the Supreme Court.

“In the new Congress, we’re going to have to do something about this Supreme Court,” Jeffries told the MeidasTouch Network.

Rep. John Rose, a Tennessee Republican, said on social media that Jeffries’ comments show that Democrats are preparing to “nuke the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court the second they’re back in power.”

Trump and some Republicans in Congress, convinced Democrats will end the filibuster to pass priorities like Supreme Court reform, want Republicans to end the filibuster first and enact a host of conservative priorities before the party potentially loses control of the Senate following the November elections.

But even if Democrats end the filibuster, the party faces a steep climb to changing the court unless it retakes control of Congress and the White House. That means any major overhaul almost certainly wouldn’t become law until at least 2029.

Trump’s response

Trump has had a turbulent relationship with the court but would be virtually certain to veto legislation remaking it while he remains in office.

While the justices have protected Trump and future presidents from criminal prosecution for actions taken as part of their presidential duties, they struck down his sweeping worldwide tariffs as illegal, dealing a major blow to one of his signature policies. They also refused to hear legal challenges that sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Still, Trump scoffed on Thursday at Democratic hopes to remake the court in the future. He accused the party of wanting 21 justices on the court (Democratic-sponsored plans in recent years have called for 13 or 15 justices). He also called Jeffries’ comments a “dangerous statement.”

“Hakeem Jeffries said the Supreme Court is illegitimate,” Trump said Thursday. “That’s a rough statement.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act could upend American politics and trigger a new rush to redraw congressional districts.

The opinion released on Wednesday, in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, holds sweeping consequences for how states and local governments draw district lines at all levels of government, from Congress to school boards. 

Louisiana, whose congressional map is at the center of the case, may even suspend an upcoming primary election so state lawmakers can pass a new map. Other states are also weighing new gerrymanders, either this year or before the 2028 election. 

Gerrymandering refers to drawing political maps for the purpose of gaining some form of unfair advantage — whether partisan or racial or to help or hurt an incumbent or candidate.

Following the decision, Democrats are calling for Congress to pass new federal voting rights legislation, but President Donald Trump would likely veto it. Others are urging more radical changes, including expanding the size of the Supreme Court.

As the nation responds to the decision, here’s a States Newsroom look at the decision, what it means and what could happen next.

What is Louisiana v. Callais?

After the 2020 census, the Louisiana Legislature passed a congressional map that included one district where a majority of residents are Black. About a third of the state’s population is Black.

States typically draw new congressional lines once a decade following the census, though several states have pushed through new maps this year after Trump called on Republicans to maximize their political advantage heading into the midterm elections this November.

Black voters challenged the Louisiana map and an appeals court ordered lawmakers to pass a new map. The legislature in 2024 approved a map that includes a second district where a majority of residents are Black, also called a majority-minority district.

In response, a group of white voters sued over the new map, claiming it violated the U.S. Constitution and was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law and the 15th Amendment prohibits denying the right to vote on the basis of race.

The lead plaintiff in the case is Phillip Callais, hence the case’s name. The New York Times reported last year that Callais is a veteran who lives near Baton Rouge. 

The Supreme Court held its first oral argument on the case in March 2025. But instead of issuing a decision later that spring, the court held a second round of oral argument in October. 

At that time, comments by the conservative justices strongly suggested the court was interested in weakening the federal Voting Rights Act.

What is the Voting Rights Act and what role did it play in redistricting?

The Voting Rights Act, or VRA, is a 1965 federal law passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson.

The law was designed to stop racial discrimination in voting and combat Jim Crow laws like literacy tests that Southern states used to prevent Black people from voting.

It contains several sections but the Supreme Court decision in Callais dealt with Section 2. That section prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race and other characteristics. In 1982, Congress expanded Section 2 to ban voting practices that have a discriminatory effect, whether or not the law was intended to discriminate.

Section 2 has acted as a ban on racial gerrymandering, or the practice of drawing districts to minimize the political influence of minority voters. Over time, that’s led to the creation of numerous majority-minority congressional districts.

Many of these majority-minority districts are located in Republican-controlled Southern states  but are held by Democrats. In the past, if states drew new maps to spread minority voters across several districts, they could face challenges in federal court under Section 2.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Louisiana’s congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. 

The court found that because the Voting Rights Act didn’t require Louisiana to create a second majority-minority district, the state didn’t have a compelling reason to consider race when drawing its map.

Under the court’s reasoning, Section 2 only applies when evidence supports a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred. In other words, lawmakers only violate Section 2 when they draw districts with the purpose of affording minority voters less opportunity because of their race.

The court’s majority opinion says “none of the historical evidence presented by plaintiffs came close to showing an objective likelihood that the State’s challenged map was the result of intentional racial discrimination.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by all of the court’s conservatives: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neal Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

The court’s three liberal justices — Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented.

Why is the decision a big deal?

The decision empowers states to gerrymander in ways that break apart districts where a majority of residents are Black, Hispanic or belong to another minority group.

In 2019 the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts would no longer take cases about partisan gerrymandering. That’s where states draw maps to help a political party.

Because many majority-minority districts in the South are held by Democrats, the Callais decision gives Republican states the power to break apart these districts if they can show they are doing so for a partisan purpose.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote in a dissent.

In the short term, the decision means several Black Democrats in the U.S. House may lose their seats if states pass new maps either this year before the November midterm elections or before the 2028 election. At least one projection has pegged the potential losses as high as 19 seats.

The loss of even a few Black representatives would constitute the largest drop in Black representation in Congress since Reconstruction following the Civil War, according to an NPR analysis. 

In the long term, minority voters will have a more difficult time electing their preferred candidates if they are moved into majority-white districts. The decision also applies to state legislative districts, meaning the number of Black state lawmakers may drop as well.

What impact does the Voting Rights Act have after the ruling?

Not nearly as much.

The Supreme Court’s decision didn’t strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But Kagan and other critics of the opinion say the protections once extended by Section 2 are effectively dead.

To block a map under Section 2, challengers will now have to show states intentionally discriminated against minority voters, a very difficult standard when states can say they drew maps for partisan advantage.

In a series of decisions during the past 13 years, the Supreme Court has also weakened other elements of the Voting Rights Act.

In 2013, the court effectively blocked preclearance, another major portion of the law contained in Section 5. Preclearance required states and local governments with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes.

Preclearance applied to most Southern states and a handful of others. The justices didn’t strike down preclearance, but ruled that the criteria used to determine whether governments should be subject to preclearance was unconstitutional.

The law required districts that had voting tests in place in 1964 and had less than 50% turnout in the 1964 presidential election as eligible for preclearance. The court found that the criteria no longer made sense and were outdated. 

In theory, Congress could pass new criteria that would restore preclearance.

How are Republicans responding?

Republicans in Southern states are pushing for new maps that could hand their party more seats in the November elections — but also oust Black Democratic members of Congress.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, announced on Thursday that the state’s primary election, set for mid-May, would be paused. The suspension will give time for state lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map to eliminate the state’s second majority-minority district.

“We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward,” Landry said in a statement.

Florida lawmakers passed a new map hours after the court’s decision that could provide Republicans with up to four additional seats. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had introduced the map earlier in the week and had cited Callais in urging lawmakers to act.

In Tennessee, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican running for governor, called on state lawmakers to pass a new map. Prominent Republicans in Georgia said the state should pass a new map.

Not all Republicans are pushing for immediate action. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said that while she supports the Supreme Court’s decision, the state wasn’t in a position to hold a special session to redistrict.

How are Democrats responding?

Democrats have condemned the Supreme Court’s opinion and say lawmakers and the public should fight back.

Many Democrats say Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after civil rights activist and Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who died in 2020. The legislation would set new criteria for preclearance, seeking to restore the practice after the Supreme Court stopped it in 2013.

The U.S. House passed the measure in 2021, but it didn’t advance through the Senate. 

Enacting the measure remains extremely difficult. If Democrats retake control of Congress in the November elections, Trump would almost certainly veto the measure. Republicans in the U.S. Senate would also likely block the bill, unless Democrats eliminate the filibuster.

Democrats are also weighing a new round of gerrymanders in blue states. While most attention has focused on Southern Republican states, Democrats can now also engage in racial vote dilution in states like California to secure additional U.S. House seats.

Some Democrats and opponents of the Supreme Court’s decision are pushing for other responses. 

They include expanding the size of the court from nine justices to dilute its conservative majority, implementing term limits for justices, banning mid-decade redistricting or requiring states to use independent commissions to draw congressional maps.

“We must continue to fight for a democracy in which every vote counts, and in which every vote holds equal power, starting by banning mid-decade gerrymanders nationwide and establishing fair redistricting criteria,” Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said in a statement.

But those changes would require federal legislation, giving Republicans the opportunity to stop the proposals through filibusters in the Senate or by Trump’s veto.

President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to capitalize on a U.S. Supreme Court decision weakening the federal Voting Rights Act as he urged one governor to gerrymander his state and praised another for suspending an approaching primary.

The court’s decision on Wednesday struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as unconstitutional and empowered other Republican states to break apart districts where most residents are Black for a partisan advantage.

The opinion could reinvigorate Trump’s push for states to redraw their maps to give Republicans an edge in the November midterm elections. The president’s party typically performs poorly in the midterms and Trump’s approval has fallen in polls, making Democrats hopeful they can retake the U.S. House.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and state Attorney General Liz Murrill announced on Thursday that the state’s congressional primary election, set for mid-May, would be suspended. The pause gives state lawmakers time to draw a new map aimed at ousting at least one, if not two, Black Democrats.

Trump thanked Landry on his social media platform, Truth Social, for “moving so quickly to fix the Unconstitutionality” of the state’s map. In a separate post, Trump wrote that he had spoken with Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who faces calls to immediately gerrymander the state.

“I had a very good conversation with Governor Bill Lee, of Tennessee, this morning, wherein he stated that he would work hard to correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee,” Trump wrote.

A spokesperson for Lee didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The redistricting rush 

Historically, states draw new maps once a decade after each census but eight states have now broken that norm after Trump urged Republicans to gerrymander. 

Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah have drawn fresh GOP-leaning maps, as well as Florida, whose legislature approved a gerrymander hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. California and Virginia have enacted new maps favorable to Democrats. 

Before Wednesday, the redistricting war was essentially a wash. But the court’s decision gives Republicans more options to gain the upper hand this year, if states can move quickly. 

Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee are among the red states with upcoming primaries where lawmakers could theoretically still act. In some states — like Georgia and Tennessee — top Republicans haven’t ruled out action. In others, like Alabama and Georgia, GOP leaders have ruled out or played down the possibility of action this year.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, urged states to gerrymander their maps before the midterm elections.

“I think all states that have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully and I think they should do it before the midterms,” Johnson told CNN on Thursday. 

Dems also talk gerrymandering

Democrats have also floated the possibility of additional gerrymanders — whether this year or ahead of the 2028 election. 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on social media after the court’s decision that she would work with the legislature to change the state’s redistricting process. New York currently uses a commission system to draw maps, limiting opportunities for partisan gerrymandering.

At a news conference hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday, Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, suggested she would support additional Democratic gerrymanders.

“It values partisan politics over discrimination,” Sewell said of the court’s decision. “It’s really, really, really — I mean, it takes us back. So to the extent it’s urging, it’s inviting red states to totally take away all of the Democratic seats and be totally red, it also encourages blue states to do exactly the same.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act sent Black Democrats in the U.S. House reeling on Wednesday, as they confronted a new reality where Republicans could gerrymander some of them out of office and limit the ability of Black voters to elect candidates in the future.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus vowed to fight the court’s decision. They demanded fresh votes on federal voting rights legislation that has languished for several years and urged voters to turn out in the November election.

But facing a Republican-controlled Congress for at least the rest of the year and a Republican White House for at least the next two-and-a-half years, the prospect of major new voting rights legislation becoming law appears slim in the near term.

“It will pave the way for the greatest reduction in representation for Black and minority voters since the years following Reconstruction,” Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, said of the court’s decision, referring to the post-Civil War period in the South.

Republicans could ultimately secure up to 19 U.S. House seats nationally directly because of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to a projection by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters. 

As of Aug. 4, 2025, Congress included 61 Black members of the House, including two delegates, and five senators, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Racial gerrymander

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because it unnecessarily created a second district where a majority of residents are Black.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act had previously limited states from using maps that dilute the voting power of minority citizens. Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent that the decision would now allow states to dilute the voting power of minority voters without legal consequences.

Republicans welcomed the decision, with many saying race should play no role in redistricting. President Donald Trump, informed about the ruling by reporters and told that it would help Republicans, exclaimed, “I love it.”

Florida lawmakers approved a new map within hours of the opinion. The proposal, offered by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this week, seeks to secure four additional House seats for Republicans. DeSantis had invoked the court’s decision, even before it was released, to push lawmakers to pass the new map.

GOP candidates and officials in other states urged state lawmakers to move quickly to redraw maps, even with primary elections approaching. Even if only a small number of states enact fresh gerrymanders this year, the Supreme Court decision will likely trigger another, bigger wave of redistricting over the next two years ahead of the 2028 election.

“The Court rightly acknowledged that the South has made extraordinary progress, and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect the present reality,” Alabama Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.

Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement said the decision “restores fairness, strengthens confidence in our elections, and ensures every voter is treated equally under the law.”

The Supreme Court in 2019 allowed states to redraw maps for political advantage, ruling that federal courts would no longer adjudicate partisan gerrymandering cases. That previous decision, combined with Wednesday’s opinion, offers states a wide berth to draw maps that limit the voting power of minorities if they’re sold as politically necessary.

Bloody Sunday

Sewell represents a district that includes Selma, where the civil rights activist and future U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., along with other marchers, was beaten by state troopers in 1965 while walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an episode called Bloody Sunday. 

The beatings helped spur Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act later that year — the same law the Supreme Court weakened on Wednesday.

“The court just gave states permission to use partisan gerrymandering as a wholesale excuse to deny Black and minority voters a voice in our democracy,” Sewell said.

In Missouri, the Republican-controlled legislature earlier this year passed a map intended to oust Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who was Kansas City’s first Black mayor. The state Supreme Court is weighing a legal challenge that could keep the map from taking effect before the November election.

On Wednesday, Cleaver in a statement called the opinion “deeply disrespectful of the generations of African Americans and civil rights advocates who gave their freedom, their blood, and even their lives to make it possible.” 

Obama criticizes ruling

Former President Barack Obama condemned the decision as another example of how a majority of the current Supreme Court seems intent on “abandoning its vital role” in ensuring equal participation in American democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.

“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome,” Obama said in a statement. “But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers – not just in the upcoming midterms or in high profile races, but in every election and every level.

Several Democrats said Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a Democratic-sponsored measure that seeks to restore preclearance — a requirement that states with a history of discrimination obtain federal approval before making voting changes. The Supreme Court effectively halted preclearance in 2013.

The House, under Democratic control, passed the legislation in 2021 but it stalled in the Senate. Democrats could likely pass the bill again if they retake the House in November but would face a likely filibuster again in the Senate. Even if they managed to pass the bill, Trump would be virtually certain to veto it.

Rep. Cleo Fields, a Louisiana Democrat whose district was ruled an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, sought to place the court’s decision in a broader, historical context. 

Looking ahead to midterms

Recalling Louisiana’s Jim Crow past, he said the state used to require individuals to recite the Constitution’s preamble before registering to vote.

“If you tell me I’ve got to jump a certain height, I could probably do that. Tell me I’ve got to run a certain distance, I could probably do that, too. But if you tell me I have to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, I can’t do nothing about that — I need some help from my government,” Fields said, adding that’s why Congress needs to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the Supreme Court’s conservative majority “illegitimate” and said the opinion was unacceptable but not unexpected. 

While acknowledging the decision represents a setback, America has an opportunity to mount a comeback in the upcoming election, he said.

Jeffries, who is set to become speaker if Democrats retake the House in November, said one of the chamber’s first actions would be to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

“So we can end the era of voter suppression in America once and for all,” Jeffries said.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office on Monday invoked an upcoming landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the role of race in drawing congressional districts to justify the Republican’s proposed gerrymander.

“The use of race in redistricting should never happen,” the governor’s general counsel, David Axelman, wrote in a memo unveiling a map that aims to hand Republicans four additional U.S. House seats in Florida.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court delivered an opinion sharply weakening a major portion of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Even before the decision, Republicans and Democrats across the country were scrambling to get ahead of the court’s anticipated ruling. 

The rush comes even as state legislative sessions wind down and the window to redraw maps rapidly closes ahead of the midterm elections in November — likely pushing most redistricting battles into the 2028 election cycle.

The opinion in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, could reverberate for decades. The court’s conservative majority significantly curtailed the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps. 

Until now, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has limited states from using maps that dilute the voting power of minority citizens.

“If the Supreme Court does decide to gut or significantly weaken Section 2 of the VRA, we’re very concerned that it would give, basically, the green light to states to racially gerrymander,” Michael McNulty, policy director at Issue One, a group focused on protecting American democracy, said in an interview ahead of the decision.

Republicans could ultimately secure up to 19 U.S. House seats nationally directly because of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to a projection by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters. At the state level, the groups have projected that Republicans could gain up to 200 state legislative seats across the South. 

“It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA School of Law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, wrote in a blog post following the opinion’s release on Wednesday.

Louisiana case

A group of white voters challenged Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander after the state in 2024 created a second district where a majority of voters are Black. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices agreed, ruling 6-3 that the map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the state didn’t need to create a second majority-minority district.

In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “none of the historical evidence presented by plaintiffs came close to showing an objective likelihood that the State’s challenged map was the result of intentional racial discrimination.”

Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent that the Supreme Court has “had its sights set” on the Voting Rights Act for more than a decade.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote.

Following the opinion, Republican-led legislatures across the South are expected to move to break apart Democratic districts where a majority of residents are Black or from other minority groups. 

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, called on the state legislature to reconvene and redraw the state’s congressional districts to create another Republican-held seat in Memphis. Blackburn, who is running for governor, said an additional seat is essential to cement President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves last week announced a special session to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts, to begin 21 days after the court releases its decision.

“It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps,” Reeves said in a statement announcing the session.

Although the Supreme Court case centered on Louisiana, state officials are likely out of time to adopt a new map for this year’s election. The primary election is set for May 16.

Still, Louisiana will be free to pursue redistricting next year.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, Sr., a Democrat who represents one of the state’s two majority-minority districts, said the court’s decision was a “devastating blow” to the promise of equal representation.

“This ruling is about far more than lines on a map — it’s about whether Black Louisianians will have a meaningful opportunity to make their voices heard,” Carter said in a statement.

The redistricting wars of 2026

As of 2024, roughly a third of U.S. House seats represented majority-minority districts — 122 held by Democrats and 26 held by Republicans, according to estimates by Ballotpedia. Texas and California account for nearly half of all the districts.

Seven states have already taken the extraordinary step of redrawing their maps this year after President Donald Trump urged Republicans to draw lines that maximize partisan advantage ahead of the midterms. Maps are typically redrawn every 10 years after the census.

Texas and California struck first, followed by Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah. Virginia voters last week approved a redraw, and Florida lawmakers approved a new map Wednesday. 

All told, Republicans may emerge from the redistricting war with a small net advantage of a handful of seats if the Florida plan is enacted and the other maps are upheld.

The calendar will prove a major obstacle to additional gerrymanders this year. Primary elections have already been held in some southern states and ballots have been distributed in others. 

Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas have already held primaries, while ballots have been distributed in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. 

But after November the clock resets, giving states more than a year to pursue further changes to their maps before the 2028 election.

“We are much more concerned about the impact on 2028 and beyond that that would have, letting these politicians basically just pick their voters instead of the voters picking them,” McNulty said.

John R. Lewis bill

As Democrats look ahead to Callais’ likely fallout in the coming years, they have begun urgently calling for action in Congress and at the state level. They also say the decision emphasizes the stakes of this year’s elections.

“Today is a devastating day for democracy and a wake-up call for all those who seek to protect it,” Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

Democrats in Congress have repeatedly offered the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Named after the civil rights activist and Georgia congressman who died in 2020, the legislation aims to strengthen Section 2 and other elements of the current Voting Rights Act, though it’s unclear whether the bill would be constitutional under the Callais decision.

The U.S. House, under Democratic control, passed the legislation in 2021 but it was filibustered in the Senate. Some lawmakers are speaking about the measure again, and Democrats may take control of Congress in November’s elections—though they would still face President Donald Trump in the White House. 

“We can and must revive the Voting Rights Act,” Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat and the ranking member of the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, said at a shadow hearing on voting rights on Monday.

For their part, Republicans hailed the Supreme Court decision as long overdue.

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement said “activists” for too long had manipulated the redistricting process to achieve political outcomes, dividing Americans in the process.

“The Supreme Court made clear that our elections should be decided by voters, not engineered through unconstitutional mandates,” Hudson said.

Voting Rights Act over the years

Over more than a decade, the Supreme Court has narrowed the potency of the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law banning racial discrimination in voting that came as Congress battled Jim Crow laws in southern states. 

The measure was intended to help enforce the U.S. Constitution’s 14th and 15th amendments, which guarantee equal protection under the law and prohibit denying the right to vote on the basis of race.

In 2013, the court effectively halted preclearance — the requirement that some states and local governments with a history of discrimination obtain federal permission before changing their voting practices. At the time of the decision, most southern states and a handful of others were subject to preclearance.

The Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that federal courts cannot review allegations of partisan gerrymandering. The decision cleared the way for state lawmakers to gerrymander their maps for political advantage without fear they would be second-guessed by federal judges. 

The opinion helped empower a wave of gerrymanders after the 2020 census and set the stage for this year’s mid-decade redistricting.

Turning to the legislatures

Facing a bleak federal landscape, some voting rights advocates are increasingly turning to state legislatures. The Supreme Court decision undercutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act will likely intensify efforts to advance state-level legislation.

“Because political participation is inherently local, it is imperative to press for protections at the ground level,” Todd Cox, associate director counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, a racial justice legal organization, said at the shadow hearing.

Some Democratic state lawmakers already introduced measures in anticipation of an unfavorable Supreme Court decision.

The Illinois House last week approved a state constitutional amendment that would require districts to be drawn “to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race.”

The Illinois amendment would also require, where practical, the creation of racial coalition or influence districts — terms that refer to districts where racial minorities together constitute a majority of residents. The measure, which must also pass the state Senate before going to voters, was a pre-response to the Callais opinion.

“This will ensure that Illinois will always recognize the fundamental principle that a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people must include all the people,” Illinois Democratic House Speaker Emanuel Welch told reporters after the amendment advanced.

Illinois Republicans have cast the amendment as a Democratic power grab. The state has some of the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, a Republican, said in a statement. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has given Illinois’ maps an overall “F” grade.

“Let’s be clear: this has nothing to do with strengthening democracy,” McCombie said. “It’s about locking in one-party control at any cost.”

A lawsuit seeking to throw out Wisconsin’s congressional maps on the basis that they’re unconstitutionally anti-competitive was dismissed Tuesday by a panel of three circuit court judges. 

The lawsuit was brought last summer by bipartisan business group Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy Coalition, represented by the progressive nonprofit Law Forward. 

For more than a decade, Wisconsin has been a national symbol of the effects of extreme partisan gerrymandering and Tuesday’s dismissal comes amid a effort by both major parties to redraw maps ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. 

A national mid-decade redistricting tit-for-tat started last year when Texas Republicans drew new maps, at President Donald Trump’s request, in an attempt to limit the number of Democrats in the House of Representatives. A number of other Republican states, including Missouri and North Carolina, followed suit. In response, voters in California and Virginia voted to change state laws to allow Democrats to re-draw their maps to minimize Republican seats. 

This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a bill that would redraw his state’s maps to give Republicans four more seats. 

While both parties have drawn political maps to favor their own candidates, only congressional Democrats have proposed a bill that would ban partisan gerrymandering. In Wisconsin, state Democrats have long pushed for the adoption of a non-partisan redistricting commission. 

Wisconsin’s current congressional maps were adopted in 2021 by the state Supreme Court after Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans in the Legislature were unable to reach a deal on their own. When forced to weigh in, the Supreme Court instituted a “least change” rule that required any maps proposed to the Court to hew as closely as possible to the maps instituted by Republicans in 2011. The map the Court chose was proposed by Evers, a Democrat, but resulted in a heavily Republican congressional delegation, since they were drawn to adhere to the “least change” standard.

The 2011 political maps and the least change decision allowed Republicans to hold six of the state’s eight congressional seats. The state Supreme Court tossed out the state’s legislative maps in 2023 — which remained heavily gerrymandered under the “least change” standard — on the grounds that the shapes of the districts, some of which were broken into noncontiguous parts, were illegal. 

Over the years, the court system has heard a number of challenges to Wisconsin’s congressional maps on the basis that they are an illegal partisan gerrymander. A separate three-judge panel dismissed another lawsuit on partisan gerrymandering grounds late last month. 

Despite that dismissal, the Law Forward lawsuit argued that its claims were new and therefore deserved to be considered by the courts. The lawsuit argued that the maps were drawn to unfairly give incumbents of both parties an advantage, pointing to the fact that only one of the state’s congressional districts, western Wisconsin’s 3rd CD, is regularly decided by a single-digit margin. 

“After the Wisconsin Legislature adopted the 2011 congressional map, congressional races over the ensuing decade were, as intended, highly uncompetitive,” the lawsuit stated. “The Court’s adoption … of the ‘least change’ congressional map necessarily perpetuated the essential features — and the primary flaws — of the 2011 congressional map, including the 2011 congressional map’s intentional and effective effort to suppress competition.”

Republicans and their allies intervened in the case, arguing that it should be dismissed because the anti-competitive argument treads the same ground as the partisan gerrymandering claims the Court has already declined to hear. 

The three-judge panel, made up of Dane County Judge David Conway, Marathon County Judge Michael Moran and Portage County Judge Patricia Baker, agreed and dismissed the case, noting that the makeup of the state’s political maps is a question best left to the political branches of government, not the judicial system.

“Plaintiffs’ anti-competitive gerrymandering claims are functionally equivalent to partisan gerrymandering claims, at least for purposes of the political question analysis,” the judges wrote. “In a two-party system, partisan fairness and competitiveness are correlated: a more competitive map is typically a fairer map, whereas less competition usually means less partisan fairness. The objective of both theories is to change ‘the partisan makeup of districts,’ whether by achieving proportional representation, electoral competitiveness, or both.” 

Doug Poland, Law Forward’s director of litigation, said in a statement Tuesday that it’s disappointing the panel dismissed the case before it had the opportunity to hear evidence. He also said the panel’s ruling will be appealed directly to the Supreme Court. 

“This is the first anti-competitive gerrymandering case ever filed in Wisconsin courts, and it deserves to be heard,” Poland said. “We believe that the circuit court was wrong in concluding that anti-competitive gerrymandering is ‘functionally equivalent’ to partisan gerrymandering. They are different claims, based on different evidence, that target different ways of manipulating representation to the detriment of voters.”

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The race by each party to redraw U.S. House districts in their favor could be headed for a draw after Tuesday’s big win for Democrats in Virginia, though major shifts are still possible before crucial midterm elections in November.

Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that clears the path for the state’s legislature, controlled by Democrats, to redraw congressional district lines to benefit Democrats in 10 of the commonwealth’s 11 U.S. House districts. 

That could net the party four new seats in Virginia, though state court cases challenging the proposal are still to be decided.

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat who now leads the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University, said the results showed a dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and the nation’s capital in general.

“It sends a clear message to the administration, to the White House, to Washington, D.C., that they’re not happy with the status quo, with the policies that are coming out of Washington, that they want to see a change,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

After 10 months of bitter back-and-forth that began with Trump urging Texas Republicans to revise their congressional map to help gain seats in the House, neither party has netted a significant advantage.

But the tit-for-tat may have a lasting harmful effect on U.S. democracy, experts said.

If Virginia’s proposal goes into effect, Democrats would be favored in one more House district nationwide than they had been in 2024, according to the nonpartisan election research organization Ballotpedia.

Further changes, including the Florida Legislature potentially redrawing its House map and a U.S. Supreme Court decision to gut the federal Voting Rights Act’s protection of majority-Black districts in Southern states, could tilt the advantage back to the GOP. 

Republicans narrowly control the chamber now, 217-212, with one independent and five vacancies after Georgia Democrat David Scott died Wednesday. 

The president’s party typically loses House seats in midterm elections, and Trump’s sagging poll numbers and the results of special elections do not suggest anything different this year.

Good for Democrats, bad for democracy

Elected Democrats largely framed the Virginia results as a win for free and fair elections.

“Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they pushed back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, wrote on X.

But the entire cycle could deepen political polarization, leading to less compromise and policymaking in Congress and ceding power to the executive branch, Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy at Northwestern University, said Wednesday.

“There were some quotes today from some leading Democrats about how you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and this is the only way to, like, save democracy, and sort of rationalizing it,” he said. “It’s still bad for democracy long term… It means that Congress, long term, is even more polarized and ineffectual.”

Mucarsel-Powell, who represented one of the country’s few competitive House districts, also said redistricting would make legislating more difficult.

“Redistricting doesn’t necessarily help the country overall,” she said. “As we continue to become more polarized, I think that having these maps being redrawn to favor one or the other party is just going to deepen the polarization. I think it makes it more difficult for members to be able to reach consensus. I’ve seen it, right? When you represent a solid red or a solid blue district, there’s really no incentive to compromise.”

Republicans sour on Virginia result

Republicans, from Trump on down, complained Wednesday that the result was unfair because it could give Democrats 91% of the U.S. House seats in a state where the party’s most recent presidential candidate gained only 52% of the vote.

In a post to his social media site Wednesday afternoon, Trump said the result was illegitimate — repeating, without evidence, his frequent assertion in elections he has lost that mail ballots were fraudulent — and called for courts to “fix” the result.

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!” Trump wrote. “All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!”

Questionable strategy

But the proposed Virginia map would only even the playing field after Trump initiated a rare mid-decade redistricting cycle last year by asking Texas officials to redraw the state’s districts. 

Texas’ new map could net Republicans five more House seats. But its creation kicked off an arms race that included California drawing five new Democratic-leaning districts, effectively neutralizing Texas’ move. 

Legislatures in Missouri and North Carolina then voluntarily redrew their maps, while an Ohio constitutional amendment and a Utah Supreme Court decision led to new district lines in those states.

Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under Republican President George W. Bush, bemoaned the Virginia results but called them a self-inflicted wound. States should stick to redistricting once a decade after a census, he said, blasting the GOP strategy to attempt mid-decade redistricting in some states.

“The GOP will now lose net seats across the country. If you’re going to pick a fight, at least win it. The other side will always fight back,” he wrote. “All this was foreseeable and avoidable. We should not have started this fight.” 

Fleischer linked to a post he’d written in August criticizing the GOP effort in Texas as that state geared up for a vote on the new map. “Mid-census change” was not the way to win more seats in the House, he’d said.

National Democrats celebrated.

“House Democrats have crushed Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering scheme,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York wrote on social media Tuesday night. “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”

What’s next?

Two more decisions could further alter the landscape for U.S. House races before November.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last year in a case challenging a Voting Rights Act provision that has been interpreted to require majority-Black districts in Southern states equal to their population. Louisiana is challenging a lower court ruling that threw out a map in which only one of the state’s six districts was majority-Black, though Black people make up about one-third of the state’s population.

Depending on the scope and timing of the conservative court’s ruling, several safe Democratic seats in the South could be in jeopardy.

And in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called the state legislature into a special session, scheduled to begin next week, to consider a redistricting effort and other issues.

‘Dummymanders’?

Florida Republicans have not fully endorsed a redistricting push, which could ultimately make some incumbents’ districts less reliably red. Gerrymandering relies on spreading a party’s voters across more districts, making some individual races more difficult, especially in a potential wave election year.

“Republicans are pushing back, saying that it’s going to actually lessen the power that they have in some of these districts,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “Because if you have (a district favoring Republicans by five points), with all the overperformance that we’ve seen, including here in the state of Florida, it’s very likely going to favor the Democrats.”

Jeffries in a Wednesday morning news conference practically dared Florida Republicans to dilute their U.S. House districts, comparing the effort to the Texas map that he said was not as Republican as they thought and calling the entire GOP effort a “dummymander” that would backfire.

“F around and find out,” Jeffries said. “If they go down the road of a DeSantis dummymander, the Florida Republicans are going to find themselves in the same situation as Texas Republicans, who are on the run right now.” 

“The Republicans are dummymandering their way into the minority before a single vote is cast,” he added. “They started this war, and we’re going to finish it.”

Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade congressional redistricting, a move expected to dramatically reshape the state’s political map and potentially shift its congressional delegation from a closely divided 6-5 split to a heavily Democratic-leaning 10-1 advantage.

By 8:50 p.m., the measure passed by a vote of 50.7-49.3% out of 2.5 million ballots cast, according to unofficial results from the Virginia Department of Elections, clearing the way for lawmakers to redraw district lines outside the traditional once-a-decade census cycle. The winning margin continued to increase throughout the night as more votes were tallied. 

Supporters argued the amendment gives Virginia flexibility to respond to aggressive redistricting efforts in several Republican-led states at the urging of President Donald Trump, while critics warned it opens the door to partisan gerrymandering and undermines long-standing constitutional guardrails.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger said in a statement Tuesday evening that voters “approved a temporary measure to push back against a president who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” adding that Virginians “responded the right way: at the ballot box.” 

She said she plans to campaign with candidates across the commonwealth ahead of the midterms and emphasized her commitment to restoring the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission after the 2030 census.

Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said the results reflect what he described as a reaffirmation of democratic principles, arguing that voters “answered a question about the nature of our democracy … in favor of the people.” 

He said Virginians acted in response to what he called “unprecedented gerrymandering in other states,” adding that “fairness won” and “accountability won,” and that the outcome shows “the people will decide.”

Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, said the outcome sends a national signal, arguing that voters rejected efforts to “rig our democracy” and instead affirmed that “power belongs to the people.” He said the vote could shape the 2026 midterms, adding that Virginians “stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country” and that “when the stakes are highest, we lead.”

Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said the vote delivers “a massive blow to the GOP plot to rig control of Congress,” praising Virginia voters for what she described as answering a national call to protect democracy. 

At the same time, she cautioned that “the fight is far from over,” arguing that redistricting battles will continue to play out in state legislatures and that upcoming elections will be critical in determining who draws maps and holds power in the years ahead.

Virginia House GOP Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, said Tuesday’s outcome was “not unexpected,” arguing the process was “tilted” by what he described as “misleading ballot language and a massive spending advantage.” 

He said legal challenges will continue, adding that “the ballot box was never the final word here” and that Republicans will keep pushing for “fair maps, transparent process, and equal representation for every Virginian.”

Special session sparks fast-moving redistricting push 

The effort to change Virginia’s redistricting rules began abruptly in late October, during a special legislative session that had been called to address budget matters but quickly veered into a broader political fight.

On Oct. 27 — days before the Nov. 4 statewide elections — Democratic lawmakers unveiled plans to pursue a constitutional amendment allowing congressional maps to be redrawn outside the traditional post-census cycle. 

Within hours, the proposal ignited a sharp debate over timing, process and political intent.

Scott framed the move as a response to national redistricting battles, saying at the time, “I think we have an opportunity now to send a message to the rest of the country that we’re not going to stand by while you rig this election. We will do everything in our power to level the playing field we were talking about.”

Republicans, meanwhile, questioned both the substance and the setting. Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, said the special session had been called for budget work, not constitutional changes.

“We went into a special session to solve a very specific problem. It was not meant to be used as a tool to continuously identify issues and keep what they’re doing,” Webert said. “We shouldn’t (have been) in two sessions at the same time (and) because of that confusion, I believe … it delegitimizes specific legislative processes.”

The session’s temperature rose further when Senate Democrats blocked the reading of a communication from then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who had sharply criticized the effort.

“I am disappointed to see the General Assembly reconvening this week to ram through a constitutional amendment on redistricting only seven days before the close of our 2025 statewide and House of Delegates election and with over one million voters already casting their ballot,” Youngkin wrote.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin, appealed to what he described as Virginia’s past bipartisan approach to redistricting reform.

“Sometimes we must overcome our partisan desires and do what is right for the commonwealth as a whole,” Stanley said. “We looked Virginia voters in the eye, and promised them something fundamental, that Virginia would pick their representatives, and not the other way around. What message do we send to them if we walk away now?”

Despite the divisions, lawmakers moved quickly. On the same day, Democrats released the amendment’s language, outlining a framework for mid-cycle redistricting subject to voter approval. 

The House advanced the measure the following day, and the Senate approved it on Oct. 31 in a party-line vote, sending it forward in the multi-step constitutional process. That process required the amendment to pass again in a subsequent legislative session. 

When lawmakers reconvened in January, the proposal moved forward — but soon became entangled in a series of legal challenges.

Legal battles complicate road to the ballot 

In late January, a Virginia court struck down the amendment that had been slated for the April ballot, casting uncertainty over whether voters would ultimately weigh in.

In a 22-page ruling, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley found that the legislature acted unlawfully in approving the redistricting amendment during a special session just days before the Nov. 4 election. Hurley concluded that lawmakers exceeded the scope of that session, violated their own procedural rules and failed to comply with constitutional and statutory requirements governing amendments to the Virginia Constitution.

The state’s highest court soon reversed that trajectory. In February, the Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the referendum to proceed, clearing the way for the issue to appear on the ballot.

“Certainly the General Assembly was clear with the amendment process they put forward, and now it’s up to voters,” Spanberger said at the time, mere weeks after taking her oath of office.  

At the same time, Democrats began outlining what new congressional lines could look like.

A proposed map released in early February would significantly reshape district boundaries and was widely seen as favoring Democrats across most of the state’s 11 congressional districts.

Republicans escalated their opposition later that month, filing an emergency lawsuit seeking to block the vote and challenging the amendment process itself — a move that the same Tazewell County judge granted but that only applied to his jurisdiction. 

Once again, the Supreme Court of Virginia stepped in, granting a petition for review of the case and staying the temporary restraining order, which allowed the election to move forward statewide. 

However, the justices emphasized their decision does not resolve the underlying legal claims about whether the General Assembly followed proper procedures in advancing the amendment.

Meanwhile, the referendum drew national attention, with prominent Democrats — including former President Barack Obama — voicing support while Virginia Republicans intensified their warnings as the campaign entered its final stretch.

On Tuesday evening, Obama praised the outcome on X, writing, “Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet,” and thanking voters for “showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.”

Campaign messaging grew increasingly contentious in March, particularly after mailers opposing the amendment invoked civil rights era imagery, prompting backlash and public criticism. 

Some Republicans defended the mailers, adding to the broader political dispute surrounding the vote.

Early voting data added another layer of uncertainty, with turnout showing strength in Republican-leaning areas even as both parties ramped up efforts to mobilize voters statewide.

In the final weeks, Spanberger balanced her governing responsibilities with public support for the amendment, while Youngkin returned to the campaign trail urging voters to reject it and continued to press for court intervention.

In her statement Tuesday, Spanberger said that she remained “committed to ensuring Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission gets back to work after the 2030 census, and to protecting the process Virginians voted to create.”

FULL COVERAGE: Virginia redistricting referendum

What are the odds the soon-to-retire Republican leaders of the state Legislature are seriously considering Gov. Tony Evers’ call to end partisan gerrymandering? 

Evers called the special session that began and ended with no action this week, asking legislators to take up a constitutional amendment to ban the practice of drawing voting maps that give a disproportionate advantage to one political party. 

Legislators didn’t exactly refuse — they’ve kicked the can down the road, adjourning temporarily until later this month. As Baylor Spears reports, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu explained that legislators need to “gain public input in order to make an informed decision on how to proceed.” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Majority Leader Tyler August said they want to have more discussions with Evers to reach a “transparent and balanced solution that reflects the interests of all Wisconsinites.” 

Or maybe they just want to run out the clock, do nothing and then blame the governor for their failure to act. 

After all, President Donald Trump, the Republicans’ national leader, has been strong-arming GOP legislators in red states to hold extraordinary mid-decade redistricting sessions to draw him some extra seats to shore up an unpopular Republican House majority. Wisconsin Republicans would be swimming against the tide if they made their last act in office a good-government effort to lock in fair maps. 

Giving up power is not exactly on brand for Wisconsin Republicans. These are the same legislators who drew themselves into the most partisan gerrymandered districts in the country back in 2010. When it came time to draw another round of maps after the 2020 census, they gathered copious public input, holding hearings in which an overwhelming majority of voters told them that they wanted fair maps, and then ignored the public and gerrymandered the maps again. Only after the state Supreme Court declared those maps unconstitutional did they relent and accept 50/50 maps that lean slightly toward Republicans majorities.

Now they’re quitting in droves rather than work in a Legislature where they’ve lost the disproportionate power they conferred on themselves through gerrymandering.

Still, staring down the possibility of Democratic trifecta control of government, it’s possible Republicans could take the long view and try to protect their 50/50 stake before the other party has a shot at redrawing the districts. 

Then again, Republicans have shown very little appetite for that kind of sensible, good-government approach. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported this week, Republican legislative leaders are paying private attorneys $550 per hour in taxpayer money to defend their practice of hiring private attorneys at the taxpayers’ expense.

This freewheeling expenditure of your tax dollars follows a lawsuit filed by the public interest law firm Law Forward in February challenging the use of expensive private attorneys by GOP leaders. That practice started in the lame duck session after Evers was first elected, when Republican legislative leaders began frantically grabbing powers from the new Democratic administration. 

“It’s all about an unwillingness to exist within the bounds of checks and balances,” says Jeff Mandell of Law Forward. “It smacks of a sense that the Legislature, and particularly its leadership, is beyond accountability.”

That kind of arrogance is on its way out, along with the legislative leaders who, for more than a decade, treated government as their private club, hoarding power and ignoring the will of the voters. The best way to make sure it never returns is to permanently guarantee fair maps.

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Republican lawmakers left open Gov. Tony Evers’ special session on gerrymandering on Tuesday, saying they want to have further conversations with Evers about the issue. Evers and Democratic lawmakers criticized the lack of action. In a statement, Evers said “there’s nothing to negotiate.” 

The open-ended special session began even as lawmakers and Evers continue to discuss a possible deal on property taxes and school funding.

Evers announced his intention to call the special session in February, urging lawmakers to pass a constitutional amendment to ban partisan gerrymandering. He officially ordered the session in March. The constitutional amendment would include language to expressly prohibit drawing districts that give a disproportionate advantage or disadvantage to any political party. It would not lay out a new process for drawing maps.

Wisconsin adopted new legislative maps in 2024 following a state Supreme Court decision that found the previous maps were an unconstitutional gerrymander. The maps will be in place until 2030 when redistricting happens again. Unless there is a change to the current process, lawmakers will again be in charge of drawing new maps in 2031.

Ahead of the noon start time for the session, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) announced their intentions to leave the session open in a statement. They said they did so in “an effort to continue meaningful dialogue.”

“We view the Governor’s proposal as a first step on which to build a more comprehensive, workable solution for Wisconsin,” the leaders said, adding that they want a face-to-face meeting with Evers to discuss ideas. “We’re committed to a transparent and balanced solution that reflects the interest of all Wisconsinites.”

Evers, who is serving his last year in office, has called special sessions many times over his two terms including on abortion, gun violence and the state budget. Republicans typically have gaveled in and out of them without taking action or have completely rewritten his proposals.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said in a statement that “any changes to the current process have to be made intentionally and specifically using normal legislative procedure” and that “leaving the special session open allows the legislature to gain public input in order to make an informed decision on how to proceed.” 

“In nearly every instance in which Republicans did not immediately gavel out of the governor’s special sessions, Republicans simply quietly gaveled out months later, largely to avoid press interest, bad headlines, and public scrutiny and accountability,” Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback wrote in a social media post.

The Senate and Assembly adjourned until Thursday morning. 

Evers said in a statement after that there is “nothing to negotiate” and urged lawmakers to take action on the constitutional amendment. 

“Rigging maps so that one political party stays in power is wrong, it’s anti-democratic, and it’s un-American — there’s nothing to negotiate because there’s no room for compromise when it comes to making sure Wisconsinites’ voices matter and their votes count,” Evers said. “This is a first step — if we don’t get a ban on partisan gerrymandering put in Wisconsin’s constitution, lawmakers will never be forced to create the independent and nonpartisan redistricting process Wisconsinites deserve. Lawmakers either want to ban partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin or they don’t.” 

As the Republican leaders in the Assembly and Senate gaveled in and adjourned the sessions, Democratic members remained on  the floor of each chamber to voice their opposition to Republicans’ lack of action.

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) and Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) held a press conference to criticize Republican lawmakers for not showing up to debate the measure.

“It is a shame that Senate Republicans are refusing to do their jobs when the Senate Democrats are in the Senate chamber, ready to discuss, debate and pass the constitutional amendment banning partisan gerrymandering,” Hesselbein said. 

Hesselbein said every Senate Democrat would have voted in favor of the proposal. She also said that none of her Republican Senate colleagues had contacted her and she didn’t know whether they actually planned to come back. 

Spreitzer said that gerrymandering has led to elected officials ignoring issues that matter to voters. 

“We’re seeing the last vestiges of that right now, as lame duck Republicans who are afraid to run on fair maps aren’t even coming in to take up this issue ahead of this coming election,” he said. “We only have fair legislative maps now because of court action, but our work is not done. There will be another redistricting cycle after the next census after 2030, and we need to lock in constitutional protections to make sure that our maps are never gerrymandered again.” 

Spreitzer noted that the constitutional amendment would also provide legal grounds for a court challenge if there are gerrymander attempts in the future.

As a constitutional amendment, Evers’ proposal would need to pass in two consecutive sessions of the state Legislature before it would go to voters for the final say. 

Bianca Shaw, the Wisconsin state director for Common Cause, told the Wisconsin Examiner that the lawmakers subverted expectations for the session, but that she hopes it isn’t just about “optics” and that policymakers will take the time to listen to Wisconsinites about the issue. 

“I think that what the constituents want, what voters want, is most important,” Shaw said. “I think that it is constructive that it wasn’t outright dismissed but words alone won’t help reform, and so what I’m looking for is for legislative leaders to go into their communities and see what their constituents want.” 

Shaw said she thinks there are some shifts happening in lawmakers’ openness in part due to upcoming elections and as many are facing competitive races.

“I think that what is happening right now in the state of Wisconsin is our legislators, on both sides, on all sides, are understanding that they have to earn their votes.”

Shaw said the constitutional amendment would be a valuable signal, but not the full solution. Common Cause, which is a part of the Fair Maps Coalition, supports an independent redistricting commission proposal, which would take the job of drawing maps out of lawmakers’ hands. 

Negotiations on property taxes, school funding

Gerrymandering is not the only issue lawmakers and Evers are considering as they continue to seek a deal on tax relief and school funding. 

Wisconsin has a surplus of more than $2 billion and policymakers are seeking to tap it to provide property tax relief to citizens, who have seen large increases in their bills, as well as to  provide additional funding to school districts, which have seen a steady decline in state aid.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Evers told reporters on Monday that he and lawmakers were still talking about a potential deal.

“Before they disappear completely from Madison we need to get that done,” Evers said. “So we’re still talking.” 

According to WisPolitics, Vos said in a social media post that he had been in discussions with Evers for nearly a month and “our proposal encompasses property tax relief, rebate checks, tax exemption on tips and overtime, and enhanced special education funding for schools.” 

Other members of the Assembly Republican caucus, including Rep. Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk) also posted about the framework for the deal. 

However, it is unclear whether Senate Republicans are part of those negotiations or whether they are close to agreeing. LeMahieu declared that he was excluded from previous negotiations and the Senate did not go along with what Vos and Evers agreed. 

“Let’s hope we can convene the Legislature (we need the GOP State Senate to agree) soon so we can get this package enacted,” Vos said.

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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has called lawmakers to the Capitol on Tuesday for a special session to ban partisan gerrymandering. 

It remains to be seen whether Republicans, who control the Legislature, will shrug off Evers’ request as they have in past special sessions on issues like abortion rights and gun safety. It’s possible, given the way political winds of the 2026 midterm elections appear to favor Democrats, Republican lawmakers could come to the table, though not likely.

Last week liberal Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor defeated conservative Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar by 20 points for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The race, while technically nonpartisan, saw public support split along party lines. 

Evers, who is not running for reelection, has proposed a constitutional amendment, which requires two consecutive approvals by the Legislature in separate sessions and ratification by voters. The language of the amendment is just two sentences: “Districts shall not provide a disproportionate advantage or disadvantage to any political party. Partisan gerrymandering is prohibited.” 

Following a bill signing last week, Evers said his office was continuing discussions with Republican and Democratic leaders about his proposal. 

“We’re still working with legislative leaders and will continue doing that until that moment when they come back,” Evers said. 

State lawmakers hold the power to draw legislative and congressional districts in Wisconsin, typically once a decade after the federal government conducts the U.S. Census. Democrats, who last controlled the Assembly, Senate and governor’s office during the 2009-10 legislative session, did not pass any redistricting changes ahead of the 2010 U.S. Census and lost power to enact policy after Republicans took control of the executive and legislative branches that election year. 

“The Democratic trifecta was faced with a choice: secure fair maps for prosperity, or wait and hold out for a possible retaining power for another decade,” Evers said when he signed the special session executive order in March. “And we know how that story worked.”

In 2011, Republican lawmakers crafted maps that kept the GOP in power for more than a decade, even after Democrats won statewide offices in 2018. The Republican-drawn maps remained in place until the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck them down in late 2023. Cases challenging the state’s congressional maps are still making their way through the courts, but decisions are unlikely ahead of the midterm elections. 

Evers signed new legislative maps into law in 2024, and Democrats flipped 14 legislative seats under the new maps in an otherwise Republican-friendly election year. Those gains set up real competition for control of the Legislature this fall. 

The challenging political environment for Republicans in 2026 could create an avenue for some kind of reform if GOP lawmakers are interested, redistricting experts said in interviews with Wisconsin Watch. 

Legislative Republicans will have to consider what kind of consequences might come if Democrats take some form of power during the 2026 elections, said Jonathan Cervas, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University who specializes in redistricting and served as one of the consultants to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the case challenging the state’s legislative maps. Republicans in that case compromised with Evers on the best path forward rather than letting the consultants draw maps, Cervas said. 

“I really liked that they decided to compromise. I thought that was maybe the best case scenario outcome, though it may not have felt like the best case scenario for any of the other parties,” Cervas said. “I’m not sure that that’s what the Democrats wanted. I’m not sure it’s what the Republicans wanted. But I think from the voter standpoint, that’s a really good outcome.” 

Cervas and Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington, D.C., office, both said there are similarities between the political environment in Wisconsin today and in the Virginia legislature around 2020 that led to redistricting reform ahead of the state’s 2021 map-drawing process. 

Virginia lawmakers initiated a constitutional amendment to create a bipartisan redistricting commission in 2019 when Republicans still held power in the state legislature. 

Democrats won a majority in Virginia elections that year, and the state party eventually objected to the constitutional amendment. Virginia voters in 2020 approved the bipartisan redistricting commission that shifted full control of map-drawing power away from state lawmakers. In 2021 the group failed to agree on legislative or congressional maps, and the decision fell to the Virginia Supreme Court. 

Now in 2026, Virginia voters will decide in a special election on April 21 whether to temporarily undo the 2020 changes and approve mid-decade Democratic-drawn congressional maps that could give the party four more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. It’s part of the redistricting wave initiated after President Donald Trump called on Texas and other Republican states to enact mid-decade redistricting ahead of the midterms to help Republicans hold on to the U.S. House.

“You just see this unraveling of the reforms that were once seen as promising, and largely because it’s such an unbalanced playing field,” Cervas said. 

What key players are saying

Longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who is not seeking reelection, was critical of Evers’ proposal in mid-March, but told reporters he would be open to working with the governor on something that is nonpartisan.

“If we could negotiate and try to find something that is truly nonpartisan, you never know,” Vos said. 

Vos added that drawing district lines “should be about demographics. It should be how many people, what are the municipal lines and all those kinds of things. It shouldn’t be about how people vote.” 

That’s not how the process worked when Republicans drew the lines in 2011. Instead the maps were drawn in secretive conditions with computer programs that allowed the districts to be calibrated to protect the Republican majority even in a Democratic wave election. When Evers and the Legislature couldn’t agree on maps after the 2020 Census, the then-conservative state Supreme Court ruled the new maps should adhere to a “least change” principle that had no basis in law or the constitution.

A spokesperson for Vos did not respond to additional questions from Wisconsin Watch last week about where Assembly Republicans stand ahead of the special session. Nor did a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, who in March announced he is also not seeking reelection later this year. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor, said at a press conference in Madison last week that he would also want to see a nonpartisan proposal from Evers.

“He should produce a nonpartisan bill,” Tiffany said. “He should produce nonpartisan ideas because what we see is that his ideas are consistently partisan.” 

While Republicans hold power over the Legislature’s moves this week, Evers also faces potential objections about a partisan gerrymandering ban from some members of his own party. 

Neither Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, nor Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, expressed clear support for Evers’ plan following the governor’s executive order in March. 

Both noted the challenges gerrymandered maps favoring Republicans pose for Democrats participating in the legislative process, but said they supported a future redistricting process that allowed voters to be heard.

The top Democratic candidates running for governor told Wisconsin Watch they support some form of nonpartisan redistricting, even in the wake of Taylor’s double-digit victory margin in the state Supreme Court race.

“Wisconsinites have been subjected to one of the worst gerrymanders in the nation for too long,” Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in a statement. “Letting the people’s voices be heard is the very foundation of democracy. We owe it to every Wisconsin voter, Republican or Democrat, to fix this system once and for all.”

Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary, said the gerrymandered Republican maps “deeply harmed the state.” Fair maps now have voters “choosing their own representatives, not the other way around,” Brennan said.

Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong said she supports a nonpartisan commission to create fair maps without “elected officials meddling in that process.” Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said Wisconsin needs to keep map drawing “outside of political hands” to stop the power swing that happens when Democrats or Republicans come into power.  

Madison Sen. Kelda Roys, who stood with Evers when he signed the special session executive order in March, said she supports fair maps and a constitutional amendment to ban gerrymandering. 

“The party that earns the most votes should get the most seats,” she said in a statement. 

Missy Hughes, the former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO, and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes pointed to mid-decade redistricting efforts led by Trump in Republican states ahead of the midterms. 

Hughes said nonpartisan redistricting methods are necessary to protect Wisconsin voters.

“Wisconsinites deserve it, and as Governor I will use every lever at my disposal to ensure that our vote is protected from Donald Trump, and our maps are fairly drawn,” she said in a statement.

Barnes said fair maps are important, but he also doesn’t want Wisconsin to “fight with one arm tied behind our backs” if there continues to be future partisan redistricting pushes from the federal government. 

“There should be fair, nonpartisan redistricting all across the country,” Barnes said. “If that is not the case across the country and Wisconsin finds ourselves in a position where we ultimately have to save democracy, we need to look at all available options.”

As Democrats surge, will Republicans take Tony Evers up on a special session to ban partisan gerrymandering? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A Wisconsin court has dismissed Democrats’ efforts to get the state to redraw its congressional maps.

The three-judge circuit court panel said it did not have jurisdiction to decide whether the state’s congressional districts have been gerrymandered along partisan lines, leaving the matter to the state’s Supreme Court.

“This Panel is not endorsing the current congressional map. Rather, we, as circuit court judges, do not have the authority to read into a Wisconsin Supreme Court case an analysis that it does not contain,” the judges wrote.

Wisconsin’s current district lines trace back to the 2011 congressional maps, which attorneys for the Democrats said were gerrymandered by the Republican-controlled Legislature. Gov. Tony Evers vetoed Republican-drawn 2021 maps, which then prompted the state Supreme Court to order new maps drawn that made the “least change” to the existing district lines from 2011.

This lawsuit was part of a wave of redistricting suits filed by Democratic-aligned groups across the country, but it’s unlikely to yield new maps before the midterm elections.

Republicans represent six of Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts, though statewide partisan elections are often competitive and only won by a slim margin. Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin — a Republican and a Democrat, respectively — won their most recent elections by a percentage point or less. Evers won reelection by more than 3 percentage points in 2022.

Attorneys in the redistricting case may appeal the panel judgment to the state Supreme Court. Another redistricting lawsuit, which argues that Wisconsin’s congressional maps favor incumbents, is pending before its own three-judge circuit court panel.

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Wisconsin court dismisses Democrats’ attempt to redraw congressional map is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.