Tangle - A major SCOTUS ruling on voting rights.

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Louisiana must redraw its congressional map, finding that one of the state’s majority-black districts was unconstitutionally gerrymandered based on race. The decision weakens — but does not strike down — Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race or color. In the wake of the decision, several states could move to redraw their congressional maps based on the Court’s guidance, an effort that is expected to benefit Republicans. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!Suspension of the Rules.Isaac, Ari, and Kmele take on partisan gerrymandering and the Supreme Court’s decision on the Voting Rights Act in the latest episode of Suspension of the Rules. After you finish reading today’s edition diving deep on the topic, check out the latest video for more discussion — plus an exploration on the recent assassination attempt against President Trump, the White House ballroom, and a dramatic “fight me, bro” challenge issued by a former Tangle interview guest. Watch the new episode here!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: What do you think of the Supreme Court’s decision? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Audrey Moorehead and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. I'm your host for today, Associate editor Audrey Moorhead, and today I am excited to stake my claim on the most important legal debate of our time, which is, of course, how on earth do you pronounce jingles? G-I-N-G-L-E-S. Everyone, I think it's pretty clear that the pronunciation ought to be jingles, as I have just said. But with that out of the way, in all seriousness,

we are actually discussing a pretty landmark Supreme Court decision that was issued yesterday in Louisiana v. Calais. In that decision, the Supreme Court overturned a Louisiana congressional map on the basis that it was an unconstitutional

racial gerrymander. This ruling significantly weakens Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. You'll hear more from us about the background of this ruling, what the left and writer saying about it, and then my take. But first, I do just want to mention, the boys over on suspension of the rules took on parties and gerrymandering

and the Supreme Court decision themselves. So you can hear Isaac Ari and Camille talk about that, as well as an exploration of the recent assassination attempt against President Trump, the plans for the White House ballroom, and a dramatic challenge issued by a former Tangle interview guest. So after you finish listening to me over here, head over there and hear from them. But without further ado, I'm going to pass it over to John

for today's intro, and I'll see you again for my take. Thanks, Audrey, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to keep interest rates unchanged at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, with four members dissenting from the decision. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell also said that he will stay on as a board member after his term as chair expired. in May, citing concern over political pressure from the Trump administration. Separately, the Senate Banking Committee voted 13 to 11 along party lines to advance Kevin Warsh's nomination to be the next Federal Reserve chairman. His nomination now heads to a confirmation vote in the full Senate. Number two, Defense Secretary Pete Heikset testified before the House

Armed Services Committee facing questions about the cost of the Iran War, the ongoing threat to U.S. service members, and his firing of former Army Chief of Staff General Randy George. Separately, acting Pentagon Comptroller Juleshurst III told the committee that the cost of Operation Epic Fury has been approximately $25 billion, with munitions making up the majority of those costs. Number three, the Florida legislature approved a new congressional map that is expected to net Republicans four additional seats in the U.S. House. The new map is expected to draw several legal challenges. Number four, the House voted 235 to 191 to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for three years, sending the measure to the Senate ahead of a Thursday renewal

deadline. And number five, the House voted 215 to 215 to advance a budget framework that would allow the Senate to use the reconciliation process to fund immigration and customs enforcement and customs and border patrol. The Supreme Court just issued a ruling on a potentially groundbreaking redistricting case that could impact for many years to come the power of minority voters in this country, it focuses on the constitutionality of Louisiana's congressional map and how it was redrawn. The justice is determined if Louisiana lawmakers properly balanced constitutional and voting rights act protections. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled six to three that Louisiana must redraw its congressional map, finding that one of the state's majority black districts was

unconstitutionally gerrymandered based on race. The decision weakens, but does not strike down section two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting rights act, which prohibits voting. voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race or color. In the wake of the decision, several states could move to redraw their congressional maps based on the court's guidance, an effort that is expected to benefit Republicans. We covered oral arguments in this case in October, and you can check it out with a link in today's episode description. For context, Louisiana's original congressional map, drawn after the 2020 census, included only one majority black district. after a group of black Louisiana voters challenged the map for violating the VRA,

a lower court ordered the state to draw a second majority black district. A different group of voters then challenged the revised map, claiming it relied too heavily on race. A lower court blocked the map as an illegal racial gerrymander, although the Supreme Court allowed it to remain for the 2024 election. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the case in October 2025, and the Republican appointed justices signaled that they were likely to curtail or strike down Section 2. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said,

Unresolved legal questions required the court to determine whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act should be added to our very short list of compelling interests that can justify racial discrimination. Alito wrote that Section 2 only dictates that minority voters have the opportunity to elect their preferred candidate, not that the candidate should be given advantages

to increase their chances of representing that voter base. Section 2 is violated, Alito wrote, only when the circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred. As an example, he described a situation in which a state's redistricting algorithm created several different options for majority minority districts, and the state was unable to justify its decision not to select any of them. By contrast, he said, interpreting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to outlaw a map solely because it fails to provide a sufficient number of majority minority districts would create a right that the amendment does not protect.

Justice Clarence Thomas authored a concurrence joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing that he would go further than Alito and hold that Section 2 does not regulate districting at all. Justice Elena Kagan dissented in an opinion joined by Justice Sosonea Sotomayor and Katanji Brown Jackson. Cagan wrote that the court had completed a demolition of the Voting Rights Act, as the decision will effectively insulate any practice, including any districting scheme, said by a state to have any race-neutral justification. That justification can sound in traditional district criteria or else can sound in politics and partisanship. Signaling her strong disagreement with the decision, she signed her opinion, I dissent, assuing the traditional, I respectfully, dissent.

In light of the court's ruling, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry reportedly plans to suspend the state's primary elections in May in order to allow state lawmakers to pass a new congressional map. Today, we'll share perspectives from the right and the left on the decision, and then associate editor Audrey Moorhead will give her take. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right. First up, let's start with what the right is saying. The right celebrates the ruling, arguing race-based gerrymandering, is clearly unconstitutional.

Some praise Alito's opinion for establishing strong new precedent. Others say the court should have struck down Section 2 entirely. The New York Post editorial board wrote, The Supreme Court signals the end of legalized race games. Hooray! 60 years ago, Congress imposed intrusive racial concerns in districting as a remedy to once pervasive and systemic state-sponsored discrimination that long-thwarted meaningful political participation by black citizens in violation of the 14th Amendment's equal protection guarantees,

the board said. But the civil rights laws and America's social progress have produced a very different country today, even in the deepest south. All the way back in 2003, in a ruling allowing some continued affirmative action, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warned that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to achieve justice. Note that the High Court did not completely strike down the Voting Rights Act. It only limited obsessive government use of race when no one can point to any actual wrong to be righted. Some statistical incongruity isn't evidence of discrimination, period, the board wrote. No one is pretending that racism no longer exists, nor that some official recognition of race can still be appropriate.

Louisiana still can't adopt a map that draws bizarre shapes to avoid any natural majority minority district, for example. In the Wall Street Journal, Edward Bloom called the decision a blow against racial gerrymandering. For decades, voting rights litigation drifted toward a dangerous assumption that if election outcomes didn't roughly mirror racial census percentages, something must be legally wrong. Courts and advocacy groups increasingly treated proportional representation as a requirement. States were pressured to sort citizens by race and draw majority minority districts to hit demographic targets, Bloom said. The result was predictable and divisive.

gerrymandered maps split cities, counties, and neighborhoods, sometimes stretching hundreds of miles to connect distant populations linked primarily by race. Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion recognizes that the Constitution almost never permits a state to discriminate on the basis of race and reaffirms that strict scrutiny applies when government intentionally classifies citizens by race, Bloom wrote. Equally important, the court recognized what has been obvious in modern American politics for years. In many states, race and political affiliation are heavily correlated. The court noted that litigants increasingly attempt to repackage a partisan gerrymandering claim as a racial gerrymandering claim.

To address this problem, the justices imposed significant new evidentiary burdens on Section 2 plaintiffs. In PJ media, Matt Margolis asked, did the Supreme Court's VRA ruling go far enough? One might think that we could all agree that drawing congressional maps based solely on skin color is race, but apparently not. The entire premise of race-based redistricting is that black voters must be grouped together to have political power, an assumption that is, at its core,

deeply patronizing and racially deterministic, Margolis said. Justice Clarence Thomas didn't mince words about the court's prior adventures in this territory. He writes that today's decision should largely put an end to this disastrous misadventure in voting rights jurisprudence. The liberal dissenters, led by Justice Elena Kagan,

warned the ruling renders Section 2 all but a dead letter and accused the majority of stripping away protections for minority voters, Margolis wrote. While Kagan frames as a catastrophe, Thomas frames as a correction. One man's gutting of the VRA is another man's return to what the law actually says. Clarence Thomas has been the most consistent principal voice on this court when it comes to colorblind constitutionalism, and history keeps catching up to him. He's not just a national treasure. He's a man who has been right for decades while everyone else was still figuring it out. All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying.

The left strongly opposes the ruling, suggesting the majority acted as policymakers. Some say the decision effectively destroys the Voting Rights Act. Others argue the ruling will have catastrophic consequences for minority voters. The New York Times editorial board wrote, The Justice has acted as partisans in the voting rights ruling. The Supreme Court's decision on Wednesday on the Voting Rights Act is a mind-boggling piece of judicial overreach. six conservative justices voted to weaken the act, in that way substituting their own judgment for that of Congress, which reauthorized the law 20 years ago with overwhelming bipartisan

support, the board said. The effects will be significant. The officials who make the maps no longer need to worry much about whether they are sprinkling black voters across many districts and eliminating majority black districts. It is impossible not to notice the partisan nature of this ruling. The six justices and the majority are the six nominated by Republican presidents, and they have likely made it easier for the party that chose them to hold power in Congress, the board wrote. The decision has eviscerated the old standard of Section 2 because proving intent is extremely difficult. As a result, states will now be able to slice minority voters into small and powerless slivers, as long as they can claim to do so for partisan rather than racial reasons.

In Mother Jones, Ari Berman called the ruling a death blow to the Voting Rights Act. The hypocrisy of the Roberts Court is simply astounding. In December, the court allowed a million decade redistricting plan in Texas that was designed to give Republicans five more seats on Trump's orders to go into effect despite a lower court with the majority opinion written by a Trump appointee, finding that there was overwhelming evidence of the use of race to draw district lines and disempower people based on the color of their skin, Berman said. In Calais, by contrast, the court held that race could not be a factor in drawing district lines because it violated the 14th and 15th amendments. The Calais opinion is the latest in a long line of cases of

attacking the VRA, which has been an obsession for Chief Justice John Roberts for more than four decades, Berman wrote. The decision is much bigger than just partisan politics. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made America a multiracial democracy. It ended the authoritarian regime in the Jim Crow South that prevented millions of people from enjoying the fundamental promise of equal citizenship under the law. With an authoritarian president now in the White House and the Voting Rights Act a dead letter, America may become a democracy in name only once again. In Slate, Richard L. Hassan argued the Supreme Court's conservatives just issued the worst ruling in a century. Alito's opinion eviscerates Section 2 as applied to redistricting. He throws out the Gingles test while denying

he is doing so and has restored a requirement that plaintiffs proved discriminatory intent when challenging district lines. Only if a computer algorithm would protect minority voters by chance, do they have a chance to win such a case? What's worse, the state can defend their maps by claiming they were merely engaging in partisan gerrymandering, Hassan said. So when, say, Louisiana goes back and eliminates many black opportunity districts in its state, it can claim it's doing so to help Republicans, not whites. That's an outrageous proposition given the considerable overlap between those two groups in Louisiana.

Alito knows exactly what he's doing, make it seem like he's not gutting the Voting Rights Act through technical language, turning both the statute and the Constitution on its head, Hassan Rund. The Supreme Court itself has shown itself to be an enemy of democracy. If and when Democrats retake control of the political branches, it will be incumbent on them not only to write new voting legislation protecting minority voters and all voters in the ability to participate fairly in elections that reflect the will of the people. They will also have to consider reform of the Supreme Court itself. All right, let's head over to Audrey for her take.

All right. Watch John, and here is my take on the situation. So one of the central principles I use to think about politics and change over time is called Chesterton's fence. The premise popularized by Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton in the 20th century is this. Two people happen upon an unexpected fence as they walk along a public path. The first person wants to remove the fence as soon as possible because it blocks their ability to continue walking.

The second person disagrees, saying they should investigate why the third fence is there before they take it down? For instance, what if the fence is the only thing keeping out a dangerous animal? And what if that animal has reproduced? To take down the fence would allow these animals access to the whole countryside. And restoring the fence later would be much harder than exercising patients today. Of course, the fence might have been put up for a bad reason. Maybe someone was trying to lay an illegitimate claim to public property. Or maybe the offense's original purpose had been served. Maybe the dangerous animal died, and now the dangerous animal died, and now that the fence just blocks an empty field. In each of these cases, taking down the fence would be acceptable,

but any action would still require understanding why the fence was there. As a general rule, I exercise this principle when I think about how to go about societal change. I believe that the people who came before me usually had their reasons to structure society in specific ways, and I need to understand those reasons before I try to change society. Justice Elena Kagan, writing in dissent yesterday, put forward an excellent explanation of the historical necessity of the particular fence we call the Voting Rights Act, or the VRA. In the years following the Civil War and the failure of reconstruction, white Americans in positions of power, particularly in the South, systematically crushed the rights of black

Americans. These white Americans put up invidious fences around voting, poll taxes, literacy tests, and so on, all principles that they could claim were race-neutral, just so they could keep their black neighbors out. Congress, responding to the dire need for change, mandated that those fences be torn down. But the teardown wasn't enough. As Justice Kagan noted, there seemed an endless number of new, facially race-neutral principles that in practice barred black Americans from exercising their rights. Thus, the VRA was built, a fence that ensured Congress and the courts could have a legal remedy for any and all obstacles to black enfranchisement. Justice Kagan's dissent in Kale, is harsh, fiery.

She writes that way because she believes the Roberts Court is tearing down a fence that is still necessary. For years, Congress and the courts have interpreted Section 2 of the VRA as requiring the examination and elimination of disparate effects against racial groups, not discriminatory intent. And they did this because, as Kagan points out,

it is the rare legislature that cannot camouflage racial targeting with race-neutral justifications. But the Roberts Court in Calais reverses that long-understood test, instead requiring that plaintiffs must prove discriminatory intent in order to overturn a racial gerrymander. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, argued that the court isn't tearing down the VRA fence. Rather, it's updating long-held standards to more accurately reflect modern realities and the VRA's original mandate. Essentially, under Rolito's framework, the wild animal of American racism is very, very weak. and therefore a strong fence is no longer necessary to keep it out.

Furthermore, Alito sees the ultimate goal as a totally equal race-blind society. Under his view, the VRA is an example of race-based thinking that was temporarily necessary to combat more dangerous discrimination. But as discrimination lessens and the VRA gets less necessary, it should be made weaker and ultimately removed entirely. He cited four central historical shifts as proof for this particular weakening. First, vast social change throughout the country and particularly in the South that had eliminated 1960s-era racial differences in voter registration and turnout.

Second, the rise of a legitimately competitive two-party system in the South. Third, the Rucho decision, which declared courts couldn't make rulings on partisan gerrymandering. And fourth, the use of computers to draw maps. All of these developments, Alito held, were proof of enough change that the previous understanding of the VRA and the Jingles' racial discriminatory. test, which assesses whether electoral districts violate Section 2, were now unfairly burdensome on states. Alito doesn't argue that racial discrimination never happens. Instead, he argues that discrimination explicitly banned by Section 2 must be provably based on race, not merely partisan

preference. Partisan gerrymandering is a political question, so courts can't interfere. Plaintiffs need to disentangle race from politics in order to successfully challenge gerrymandered maps. This is Alito's most significant update to the Jingles framework. Now, Jingles can only be satisfied if plaintiffs can prove that lawmakers are intentionally eroding racial interests, not just preserving partisan interests. At first glance, I think this seems logical and fair. The Supreme Court won't interfere in partisan gerrymandering. State legislatures, unless otherwise told by Congress or a constitutional amendment, have the unfortunate right to try to preserve specific partisan outcomes. This might mean that racial groups will be divided in strained ways,

but it doesn't actually reduce their opportunity to elect a representative of their choice relative to the opportunity of other voters to do so. A black Democrat in a Republican state, for example, is required to have a fair opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. But only the opportunity of black voters is protected, not the opportunity of Democrats. Reality is not so easy to disentangle. The Louisiana map at the heart of the case and maps in many,

much of the South are proof of just how complicated it can be. In the Deep South, voting is often racially polarized. White voters are overwhelmingly Republican, while Black voters are overwhelmingly Democrat. I want to believe Justice Alito's conjecture that any racial discrimination evident in a partisan gerrymander in Louisiana is pure happenstance, and Louisiana's original map would have looked the same had those voters been white. But as Justice Kagan writes, the racial and the partisan factors are impossible to extricate in the deep south. For a lot of complicated, messy historical reasons, southern black voters have a demonstrably sharp partisan divide from their white neighbors. To be totally fair to the Calais majority, it is still possible for plaintiffs to mount

successful Section 2 challenges. Some electoral map experts are already pointing out that mostly nonpartisan local races could be used to show white voters differing from the preferences of black voters for no reason other than race. We don't yet know how courts will resolve those questions, but they could still be a viable path for suits. As such, while Kagan is right that it's much harder to mount these challenges, I think she goes too far when she claims that the Kaleigh opinion destroyed the VRA. Honestly, if you ask me, the racial problems at the heart of this case are mostly a proxy for the deeper, more pernicious problem of partisan gerrymandering.

And the actions of the states after Kaleigh came down are sheer proof of that. In my home state of Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn, who's now running to become the Republican governor nominee, called for a legislative special session to eliminate Tennessee's lone Democratic district at the heart of majority Black Memphis. The Georgia state GOP began calling for similar redistricting. Florida governor Rhonda Santis,

a Republican, declared that Calais invalidated a part of the state constitution that might have blocked the harshly partisan gerrymandered map that just passed Florida's legislature. And while Republican states are making the moves right now ahead of the midterms, Calais also cleared the way for Democratic states to eliminate some.

Republican districts. I'm no Supreme Court cynic. I genuinely believe that all of the justices, even the ones whose reasoning I tend to disagree with, are working from intelligently formed, long-held principles of interpreting the law. I'm also consistently skeptical that Scotus times its opinions for political reasons, nor do I think that Scotus should consider politics in its decision timing. But I must admit, the timing of Calais feels particularly inopportune. It's guaranteed to heat up the redistricting fight that's already swept nation ahead of this fall's midterms, and it helps Republican states more than Democratic states at the moment, though that's not necessarily true long term.

VRA was originally an electric fence that protected against racial discrimination. As partisanship has increased over time and strongly correlated with race, it's become a barbed wire fence against totally unrestricted partisan gerrymandering. After Calais, only the fence posts remain. the deadly animal has reproduced and its progeny is unrestrained. Now either Congress builds a new fence or we all suffer the consequences. That's it for my take, so I'll hand it back off to Executive Editor Isaac Saul for a staff concurrence, and then John will close us out. Thanks all for listening. Thank you, Audrey. As much as I appreciate Audrey's thoughtful and well-reasoned analysis,

which it is, if Section 2 was the fence stopping this, then that should tell us about the value and importance of keeping Section 2 alive, and about its effectiveness as Congress intended in preserving the constitutional right to equal representation. However, you land on the constitutionality of the law, which I of course concede, is the only responsibility the court has here. The reality of what is about to happen is a shameful outcome for our democracy and our country, and we should say that in clear, unambiguous terms. Until gerrymandering of all kinds is restricted, outlawed, or overcome, we will continue moving further and further into a future where our politicians pick us and not the other way around.

We'll be right back after this quick break. Thanks, Audrey. In this week's segment, The Road Not Taken, our editorial team reached consensus on what stories to cover this week pretty easily. The attempted assassination against President Trump and the two Supreme Court cases in particular were no-brainer selections. Our Tuesday newsletter on the Southern Poverty Law Center indictment was our only difficult choice. We also considered covering the DOJ dropping the investigation into Jerome Powell, cannabis reclassification, and an update on the death penalty that drove a robust internal discussion. The nuances of the SPLC case made it the most compelling choice to unpacked, but now we feel more motivated

to publish a discussion over some differing opinions on the death penalty sometime soon, too. In a different world where the Supreme Court didn't rule on the Voting Rights Act yesterday, that likely would have been the topic of today's edition. And last but not least, Star, have a nice day story. A sombarred kitten Brunel is a regular at Oxford University's Lady Margaret Hall Library. Izzy, as library regulars affectionately call him, commutes by bus each day with librarian Jamie Fishwick Ford to provide a much-needed service, comforting stressed students. Izzy has specific qualities that tailor him to the task. He's a calm, attentive, hypoallergenic Siberian forest cat. He's had several people come to him in tears,

Fishwick Ford, Izzy's owner said. It can be really tough being a way. from home for the first time and away from pets you've known all your life. Is these comforting services are so in demand that Oxford students now request visits from the famous library cat. His calendar is booked solid through next term. Nice news has this story and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to reetangle.com where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. In this week's episode,

of suspension of the rules, Isaac Ari and Camille take on partisan gerrymandering and the Supreme Court's decision on the Voting Rights Act, plus an exploration on the recent assassination attempt on President Trump, the White House ballroom, and a dramatic Fight Me Bro challenge issued by Michael Tracy to Jim Acosta. Can't make this stuff up, folks. You can check out today's episode on Apple Music,

Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform, or you can head over to our YouTube channel and feel like you're right there in the room with the guys. You might even witness a funny clip or two. Go check it out. We'll be right back in your ears next week. Until then, for Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off.

Have an absolutely fantastic weekend, y'all. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul and our executive producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth,

and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle.com.