r/TheRealProgressive

The white supremacist forces in America never accepted the victories of the civil rights movement as final. For six decades, they have been chipping away at the progress we made towards a true multi-racial democracy, with notable success at the Supreme Court under supposed institutionalist moderate John Roberts, and yesterday they made one of their longest-standing dreams real. A Samuel Alito-led 6-3 majority in Louisiana v. Callais effectively gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the central safeguard against racially discriminatory redistricting.

The right-wing plans to take advantage of this ruling and silence the voices of people of color in our government to the maximum extent possible are already in motion. Since we’re relatively deep into the primary season, most of the damage won’t take hold until 2028. But in Louisiana, Governor Jeff Landry is planning on attempting to delay the May 16th primaries to ensure the maps are redrawn by November.

The impact could be devastating. A Black Voters Matter-Fair Fight Action analysis found that up to 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11% of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus might lose their seats with Section 2 eviscerated. At the state level, we could see as many as 140 Black or Hispanic-majority legislative districts disappear.

There is no easy path forward here, and rebuilding is going to be a struggle. The very tools we use to secure change are being taken away. As the NAACP Redistricting Project manager Stuart Naifeh said yesterday, this was a multi-generational fight for them, and it’s going to be a multi-generational fight for us too. We are going to need deep structural change for this hijacked Supreme Court and to our battered democracy, including adding justices and a national ban on racial and partisan gerrymandering. We’ll be talking more about how in the coming days and weeks, but the asks will be high commitment.

For today, here are some places we can start.

The entire purpose of this project is to ensure the votes of people of color can be suppressed or devalued. It would be a terrible mistake to concede that they’ve won and we can’t do anything about it. We need to redouble our support for the folks looking to get these communities out to the polls. 🙋🏾‍♀️ Let’s consider donating to and volunteering with organizations like Black Voters Matter, Fair Fight Action, the Texas Organizing Project and Voto Latino. 🙋🏻

KEEP ORGANIZING

As we’ve been painfully reminded over the last year, much of the fight over redrawing maps will play out at the state level, often in the legislature. One of the strongest weapons we still have available is passing state-level voting rights acts, which also requires us to pick up seats downballot. Winning these races has never been a high enough priority. That has to change. 🗳️ Let’s use tools like FlipSeats.org (via Jordan Zakarin) to help identify where we should focus, consider a donation to Every State Blue’s First in Line program (via Michele Hornish) to redirect funds to under-resourced races, and sign up to volunteer with States Win to make sure we’re doing the work to get out the vote in legislative elections. 🗳️

FIGHT DOWNBALLOT

Ultimately, we are going to need to pass a new voting rights act, and it would be useful to make sure our members of Congress know that’s our minimal expectation. 🗣️ Let’s reach out to them today – we can find language and an email tool via Resistbot here, or text SIGN PLHKCU to 50409. 🗣️

CONGRESS MUST ACT

🫱🏾‍🫲🏼 Finally, we can join Indivisible for a rapid response call tonight at 8PM ET, featuring experts from the NAACP and the ACLU, to talk about the work ahead. We can sign up here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏿

MASS CALL @ 8PM ET

And if we’ve got questions we want answered, we can direct them to the experts at Bolts Magazine here.

Also in today's Rogan's List:

• We shut it down and hit the streets for May Day Strong tomorrow – help get folks activated, how to help if we can’t strike, and some flyers to hand out
• With Mills out, Graham Platner now has a clear path to take on Susan Collins - phonebanks Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays
• Warrantless wiretapping hot potato thrown back to the Senate, Farm Bill moves forward with no restoration of SNAP… with the help of Democratic votes
• Learn how to use the Right Question Institute’s Why Vote tool on May 5 or May 19

Republicans have reacted to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act at the Supreme Court like a shark to blood in the water. They’re attempting to cancel an election already underway in Louisiana and they’re rushing into special sessions to draw new maps in time for November in Tennessee and Alabama. Even in Georgia, where they’re sensibly acknowledging that two weeks before the primary is too late to start messing around, they’re still planning on redistricting this year for 2028 – recognizing they may be about to lose their trifecta. As many as 19 current minority-majority House seats are on the chopping block over the next two election cycles.

The elimination of representation for people of color is devastating, and there are no easy ways to respond. There is a somewhat clearer path forward to counter the loss of Democratic seats along with it: responding with deeper gerrymanders in blue states. Discussions about doing so are already under way in New York, and advocates are working to get it on the ballot in Colorado.

Let’s be clear: this is less than ideal. There are procedural barriers in some states, with Oregon Republicans being able to halt redistricting by fleeing the state and New York and New Jersey requiring constitutional amendments. This could also have the repellent consequence of costing us further Black and Latino-majority districts. And of course, partisan gerrymandering is bad for our democracy, ensuring that too many people don’t count in our political system and allowing parties to permanently entrench themselves in power. The cost of inaction, however, is a political field permanently tilted towards the GOP. Moreover, if we are going to secure structural reforms like a partisan redistricting ban and independent commissions, we are going to need some Republicans on board, and that’s not going to happen if they think our current broken system works to their advantage.

🗣️ If we’re in California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, or Washington, let’s reach out to our state’s Democratic leaders – elected and party officials alike – and urge them to do whatever is legally necessary to redraw our congressional maps and rebalance power ASAP. We can find call scripts and email language here. We can also send this message directly to our Democratic governors and legislators via Resistbot by texting SIGN PTUOJX to 50409. 🗣️

Also in today's Rogan's List:

• Make sure at-risk voters have the info, ID they need to make their ballots count - textbanks tomorrow, next Thursday
• Oppose House GOP’s proposed cuts to fruit, vegetables for young children, new and expecting parents
• Top GOP target Marcy Kaptur has her challenger, phonebank for her Monday and Thursdays