The NPR Politics Podcast - SCOTUS Strikes Down Alabama Maps That Limit Black Voter Power

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

By a vote of 5-4, a coalition of liberal and conservative justices essentially upheld the court's 1986 decision requiring that in states where voting is racially polarized, the legislature must create the maximum number of majority-Black or near-majority-Black congressional districts, using traditional redistricting criteria. The surprise decisions could impact other states' maps as well.And House Republican hardliners using procedural fights to disrupt the work of the chamber, lashing out after Speaker McCarthy's debt ceiling deal with the Biden administration.This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, voting correspondent Hansi Lo Wang, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and congressional reporter Barbara Sprunt.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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where all of us are pre-K graduates as well. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Hansi Luwong. I cover voting. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. It's early June. It's that time of year where we all sit around waiting to see what really high-profile rulings the Supreme Court is going to hand out today as it winds down its term. And we had a very interesting ruling at the Supreme Court today,

a surprise one, and one with big implications for voting rights. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined with the court's three liberal justices ruling that Alabama likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the influence of black voters when it drew its congressional districts. And Hansi, this, I mean, it feels safe to say to me that this is kind of a shocker, especially because of how the court has ruled on voting case after voting case after voting case in recent decades, and how much of a key role John Roberts has played in watering down the Voting Rights Act over the years. So what happened here? This was a shocker. You know, this is a case

involving Republican state lawmakers in Alabama. They drew a new map of congressional voting districts based on 2020 census results, and they only drew one majority black district, which means there was only one district where black voters had had a realistic chance of electing their preferred candidate to represent them in Congress. One district out of seven districts in the state of Alabama, in a state where more than one in four people are black. And the lower federal court said, this is not a close call here. These maps likely violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And there's one majority black voting district is not enough. It's possible to draw two. And here you have the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing with this lower court. What's interesting is that, you know, one of the arguments Alabama was trying to make was that race should not be taken into account when drawing voting districts unless there's evidence

of intentional racial discrimination. And the court's majority here rejected that argument. Mara, what did you make of this? It sounds like the Voting Rights Act is not completely dead. It's hanging by a thread. And there is a line beyond which this very conservative court will not go when it comes to racial gerrymanders. And Hansi, that is notable because we've said that the Voting Rights Act has been diluted by the Supreme Court over the years, but particularly on the question of how race goes into account, in a court's majority opinion written by Chief Justice John

Roberts. And it essentially got rid of this sections, made them ineffective, sections that required states and counties with a history of racial discrimination in voting to get approval for any changes to election rules from the Justice Department before they could be put in place. And the court's majority found the coverage formula used to determine which states and counties would require that kind of preclearance, it's called. That coverage form was found to be unconstitutional. And that was considered just a gutting of the Voting Rights Act. And after that, it's been kind of a death by a thousand cuts of what's left of the Voting Rights Act, notably a pair of cases in 2018, Abbott v. Perez, 2021, Brnovich v. the DNC, that left it harder to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to challenge racial discrimination and redistricting and the

rest of the election process. So today's ruling, which a lot of court watchers were expecting to be in some way really weakening of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But in fact, what we have here is upholding it, keeping it in place. Granted, it's two hours after the ruling came out that we're talking, and there's a lot more reporting to do. But do you have a sense yet of what this means going forward, either in Alabama? Do you know if they have to redraw the districts? What comes next? Or nationally, is there a sense that this maps in question around the country, and this will have some ripple effects there. The thing to keep in mind, though, I think, is that, you know, second to last paragraph of this opinion, the majority here acknowledges that there are concerns out there about how race can be used in redistricting. And this opinion says, you know, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, our opinion today, quote, does not diminish or disregard these concerns. It simply holds that a faithful

application of our precedents and a fair reading of the record before us do not bear them out here, which I think means the story is not over in terms of what happens to the rest of the Voting Rights Act. There's a case out of Arkansas that I'm tracking that's likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. And it's about who can bring Section 2 cases. The vast majority of Section 2 cases, they're brought by private individuals and groups. That may no longer be the case. That could be the next question before the Supreme Court soon. So let's watch and see. And don't forget, this tells us a lot about John Roberts. John Roberts is no longer the deciding vote. His clout has really been weakened since the court became 6-3 conservative. But we know that John Roberts is very conservative.

We know he doesn't like the Voting Rights Act. He hasn't liked it for many, many, many decades. But he believes that the way the court should make changes is incrementally. He was skeptical of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe in one fell swoop. Voted against it, yeah. And this decision seems to be right in keeping with his strategy that it's better to chip away at things you don't like rather than just throw them in the trash can all at once. It seems like that is the approach. Today was a really unexpected turn in this story, but the story, again, is not over. We have to keep on watching

because there are a lot of critics of the Voting Rights Act out there. And this is a long term project, it seems, from folks who do want to dismantle it. That is it for now, though. Hansi, thank you so much for joining us. You're very welcome. And Mara, stick around because we are going to take a quick break and then you and I are going to talk about some House Republican infighting when we come back. We are back and Barbara Sprunt is with us from Capitol Hill. Barbara, the Capitol is like a mile directly down the street from NPR, but I cannot actually see it from NPR. So I trust you are the other end of that hazy smoke waving at me right now.

I'm here somewhere. It's a bit smoky out here. So and Mara is still with us. And we're going to talk about some drama in the House of Representatives. At last check in, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was riding high. He got President Biden to make concessions on the debt ceiling. He got the bill passed. And all of that early punditry that a bipartisan deal would cost him his speakership did not pan out. But this week, Barbara, I think it's fair to say things look a little bit different. Oh, yeah. The House is in a very weird place at the moment. Lots of drama, even by Congress standards, I think it's fair to say. Which is drama. Which is drama. On Tuesday, there was a revolt of hardline conservatives who were angry at GOP leadership over a couple of issues, including the recent debt ceiling compromise legislation. And what they did was they

torpedoed a rule vote that would have advanced legislation about gas stoves, which was, you know, a GOP priority messaging bill that was expected to get significant Republican support. I was watching this sort of unfold from the speaker's lobby where you can sort of see through the window into what's happening on the floor. And it was chaos. I mean, once it was clear that members of the Freedom Caucus were voting against their own party, against, you know, advancing a bill that they support, there was a lot of commotion. Leadership was stepping in trying to get people to flip their votes back. That, of course, didn't happen. And basically, House business had to shut down the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday. Basically, with this

very narrow majority that Speaker McCarthy has, any five members can prevent legislation from advancing if they vote against a rule that, you know, allows it to go forward and have debate on the floor. So it's kind of like holding the floor hostage. But to what end? Well, McCarthy announced yesterday that the House won't resume votes until Monday as they try to sort their way through this. He had meetings with these, you know, disaffected members, trying to sort of sort through how to move forward. Mara, I mean, I'm sure you can't believe this.

Mara Gessner Actually, I believe it. It's very easy to believe. A failed vote on a rule is always the first step in a revolt against a speaker. I mean, the rules are almost pro forma. They should have been passed easily. This is one way that people who are angry at Kevin McCarthy can really flex their muscle. And what was so interesting to me is he did get a deal on the debt ceiling. He got to call it a victory. He got to say that he made President Biden make some concessions, but it really wasn't much of one substantively.

And the far right members of the Freedom Caucus looked at the fine print of this deal and they saw how little it really got Republicans. And they were pretty angry. And yes, he did get a narrow majority of his narrow majority to vote for it. And that's usually the biggest test of a speaker's clout. You got to keep the majority of the majority with you. But now they want something else. You know, he gave them a lot of concessions in order to become speaker after that. What was it? What was it? Fifteen, fifteen votes. Yeah. But maybe he's going to have to make some more concessions and we're not quite sure what they're going to be. I was joking before, because first of all, you know, the right wing members of the House Republican caucus going against leadership

was such a defining story of the last time Republicans had control of the House. It was so clear from the beginning of this session that that would be a storyline. But Barbara, I guess my question is, if they were really upset with McCarthy, they could easily try to boost him from the speakership, and they have not done that yet. Right. This was something that came up repeatedly during these negotiations for the actual compromise legislation was like, if you don't keep people happy enough, are you worried about, you know, potentially being ousted a speaker? Remember that one of those concessions that McCarthy made in his quest to become the speaker was agreeing to something called the motion to vacate with a one person, basically allowing one, any one member to call for essentially a snap vote to oust the speaker. You're right, that has not happened yet.

It really doesn't feel at this point that that's something that Freedom Caucus members are seriously considering. What's happened this week actually, in my mind, has sort of defined their power a little bit better, which is that they don't have to necessarily call for a vote to oust McCarthy in order to show their power. So he's still a weaker speaker. That's the bottom line. He's still a very weak speaker. And what's interesting, too, is, you know, this started with the House Freedom Caucus members. They were unhappy about the debt ceiling legislation, but they were also unhappy because one of their members, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, had said that he was threatened by House leadership when there was a rule vote on

advancing the compromise debt legislation, basically saying GOP leaders had threatened to block one of his own bills from coming to the floor if he didn't vote to advance that compromise legislation. But McCarthy yesterday told reporters that it's now not just the Freedom Caucus members that are raising concerns. He basically told us when one group does something like stop the floor, other people look at it and go, maybe I should raise some of my concerns as well. So he's fielding a lot of demands from a broader group of people than he was even a couple of days ago. All right. That is it for today. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House. I'm Barbara Sprint. I cover Congress.

And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And I would say you are two of my favorite people to record NPR Politics Podcast with. Thank you, Scott. Ditto. You are listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. We'll talk to you again tomorrow.