A voter in Fairfax County, Virginia, receives a sticker on Election Day, November 4, 2025. (Photo by Nathaniel Cline/Virginia Mercury)
Republicans on a U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday hinted at a recent Supreme Court decision weakening the federal Voting Rights Act that invalidated U.S. House districts in Democratic states where a majority of residents are from a racial minority.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, signaled that Republicans will target majority-minority districts in blue states as they seek to maximize their ability to reshape the political map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. GOP-controlled southern states are already pushing gerrymanders.
Schmitt urged the Justice Department to crack down on states whose maps were drawn to protect majority- and minority-populated districts. A top Justice Department official suggested the agency supports county audits. This request appears to be an extension of the Supreme Court’s judgment of April 29 restricted states from using race to draw districts.
“These maps do not become constitutional because they are already in use,” Schmitt said. “They won’t survive because politicians call them voting rights maps. But they won’t go away on their own. The Department of Justice has an obligation to act.”
Court Louisiana v. Callais decision gave states permission to eliminate neighborhoods where the majority of residents were racial minorities in pursuit of partisan advantage. Alabama, Florida and Tennessee have developed up-to-date maps, with Louisiana expected to follow soon. South Carolina is debating its own gerrymander.
The up-to-date district lines, along with gerrymanders introduced before the Callais decision, could ultimately give Republicans a net gain of more than 10 seats.
The number of seats could prove critical as Republicans face political headwinds heading into the midterm elections amid withering support for President Donald Trump. A successful legal campaign that forces Democratic states to break up majority and minority districts could create additional competitive House races.
Breaking up Democratic districts
About one-third of all House districts drawn from the 2020 census were made up of a majority, according to the survey. Voting analysis — Total 148. Democrats held 122 as of 2024.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, – he wrote on social media On April 30, the department continues to prioritize equal protection under the law, including in voting. Dhillon’s email was in response to a letter Schmitt sent to the Justice Department in which he made similar comments to what he said Tuesday.
“Senator – we are ON IT!” wrote Dhillon.
Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat and ranking member of the subcommittee, said the Supreme Court’s decision leaves many communities of color without enforceable tools to fight unfair maps. He called on the Senate to act by passing a federal ban on redistricting and partisan gerrymandering by mid-decade.
“Our democracy ultimately depends on protecting and preserving the right of individual citizens to elect their politicians, not on increasing the control politicians have over who their voters are to allow them to participate in elections,” Welch said.
“The Definition of Racism”
Some Republicans have come to view majority-minority districts as racist. The charged rhetoric suggests that eliminating these neighborhoods is not only politically useful, but also a legal and moral imperative.
An example is Missouri, where Republicans hold seats in six of the state’s eight congressional districts up-to-date reality under Callais. The Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a map in September dividing Kansas City in an effort to oust Republican Sen. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who has long represented downtown.
State legislators left the St. district in place. Louis controlled by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell, where less than half of the residents are white. But some Missouri Republicans have called the district a racial gerrymander and want the General Assembly to carve it up as well.
“This is the definition of racism: drawing districts based on skin color,” Missouri Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins told reporters. “We don’t want that in Missouri.”
The Supreme Court in its Callais decision did not formally strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race or other characteristics. But in practice, opponents of gerrymandering may actually have no way to prove discrimination, voting rights experts say.
“The question is whether lawmakers will have to say, ‘not only do I dislike black voters, but this is the reason I’m writing this legislation,’” Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of the nonpartisan voting rights group Fair Elections Center, said in an interview with States Newsroom a few days after the Supreme Court’s opinion was published.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court cleansed a court ruling that prevented Alabama from implementing a map adopted by state lawmakers in 2023 that could have given Republicans another seat. The lower court found the map violated Section 2.
In Louisiana, Republican Governor Jeff Landry suspended the state’s ongoing congressional primary in anticipation of a up-to-date map that will likely eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black districts. The Supreme Court in its Callais decision expedited the paperwork to allow state lawmakers to act quickly.
Duty to act
During Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Will Chamberlain, senior counsel for the conservative legal group Project III Project, said all states whose maps were drawn to protect minority representation have a “clear obligation” to redraw them using race-neutral criteria.
The calendar shouldn’t be an obstacle, he argued, saying state legislatures could be called into special sessions and primary elections postponed until up-to-date maps are in place.
“The fact that we are already well into the 2026 election cycle does not provide a complete exemption from these constitutional obligations,” Chamberlain said.
Callais has unleashed chaos and has already undermined fair representation of black voters, Todd Cox, deputy director-general counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told the subcommittee. But he argued that the decision does not challenge the constitutionality of majority-minority districts or other districts that give voters of color the opportunity to choose candidates of their choice.
Cox cautioned against using Callais to justify attacks on majority-minority districts that provide this option, saying it could indicate that states have intentionally discriminated against minority voters.
