(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . When Race Counts — and When It Suddenly Doesn’t [1] ['View Profile', 'Rob In Vermont', 'Dan K', 'Chitown Kev', 'News Corpse'] Date: 2026-05-17 The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais reveals a troubling problem in how courts handle voting rights. Here is the sharp irony: If a state draws a district so Black voters have a real chance to elect the candidate they want, the Court will rule it unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. But if a state splits up Black communities across multiple districts, weakens their voting strength, and helps one political party stay in power, the Court is likely to call it normal politics. That is the central contradiction. In Louisiana, Black residents make up about one-third of the population. The state’s old congressional map had only one majority-Black district. A lower court found that this map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it denied Black voters a fair opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. Louisiana responded by creating a new map with a second majority-Black district. The Supreme Court struck it down. The message from the Court was clear: Your old map may have weakened Black voting power, but your solution is unconstitutional because it considered race too directly. So what are state lawmakers supposed to do? If they openly admit they are thinking about race to protect minority voters, courts may strike down the map. But if they say the map is based on “partisan politics,” keeping districts compact, or protecting current officeholders, it stands a much better chance of surviving — even if the real effect is to reduce minority voting power. This creates a legal shell game. Race gets strict attention when it helps give minority voters more voice. Race becomes much harder to challenge when it works against them. Supporters of the ruling praise it as “colorblind” justice. In reality, it often looks like selective blindness. The Court sees race clearly when a map tries to protect Black representation. But it looks the other way when maps split Black communities in ways that quietly reduce their influence. That is not true neutrality. This is exactly why Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Back then, many voting rules sounded race-neutral on paper — literacy tests, poll taxes, and at-large elections. They did not always mention race, but they were designed to keep Black voters from gaining real power. The lesson was clear: Discrimination can hide behind rules that appear fair. Today’s methods are more sophisticated. Mapmakers use powerful software, detailed voter data, and clever line-drawing. They can weaken minority voting strength without ever mentioning race. They simply call it politics, compactness, or protecting incumbents. The harmful result stays the same: certain communities lose their political voice. A strong democracy should not force minority voters to overcome nearly impossible legal barriers while letting officials hide behind polite political excuses. When a map clearly and predictably reduces the power of the very communities the Voting Rights Act was meant to protect, courts should examine the real-world results — not just accept what the politicians claim their intentions were. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has always focused on outcomes, not only on intent. That is important because discrimination evolves. It no longer looks exactly like it did in 1965. The real danger of the Callais decision is the unfair imbalance it creates. Trying to fix vote dilution by considering race is treated as highly suspicious. But maps that weaken minority voting power can usually be defended as ordinary politics. That is not equal protection under the law. It is unequal protection wearing the mask of colorblindness. True colorblindness would mean applying the same tough scrutiny to both kinds of maps: those that use race to empower voters and those that use race — openly or quietly — to weaken them. The rules should be consistent no matter which political party benefits. The Voting Rights Act was born from America’s hard lesson that “neutral” rules can still produce deeply unfair results. Ignoring that lesson does not remove race from politics. It simply makes racial discrimination harder to see and easier to get away with. Main tiny edits I made: italicized the case name, added a comma in “literacy tests, poll taxes, and at-large elections,” and smoothed punctuation around the dashes. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/5/17/800040492/community/when-race-counts-and-when-it-suddenly-doesnt/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/