COLORBLIND COUP

THE COURT'S NEW COLORBLIND COUP

The Roberts Court just taught America a dangerous lesson: call racial exclusion "colorblindness," call vote dilution "neutrality," call executive overreach "presidential power," and the machinery of democracy can be taken apart in daylight.

In Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court held that Louisiana's second majority-minority congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the Voting Rights Act did not require it; the Court also "updated" the long-standing Gingles framework by requiring plaintiffs to disentangle race from partisan affiliation in racial vote-dilution claims. The polite legal phrase for that is doctrinal change. The civic phrase is sharper: the Court has made it easier to erase Black political power while pretending race has nothing to do with it.

The stakes are already visible. CT Mirror, republishing States Newsroom, reported that the decision narrowing the Voting Rights Act, combined with aggressive Republican redistricting, could put more than 20 Congressional Black Caucus members at risk. The same coverage quoted warnings that one-third of CBC seats and thousands of state and local offices could be threatened. That is not abstract law. That is power being transferred away from communities whose votes built the modern multiracial democracy.

The legal academy has named the wound. Minnesota Law Review's "The Unmaking of Section Two" argues that Section 2 is being quietly dismantled through a convergence of equal-protection doctrine, racial-gerrymandering law, and colorblind constitutionalism. Another Minnesota Law Review essay asks the blunt question beneath Callais: "Is Multiracial Democracy Constitutional?" and warns that the Court appeared poised to answer no.

The Trump administration should be furious at this framing because it exposes the trick: power is not being "restored to the people." It is being routed through courts, maps, agencies, immigration rules, and state officials to decide which people count.

The Court's term showed the same pattern beyond redistricting. UVA Law summarized a term dominated by presidential power, immigration, executive-branch appointees, and tariffs. The Court struck down Trump's birthright-citizenship executive order, securing citizenship for newborns under the Fourteenth Amendment, while also giving presidents broader removal power over independent-agency officials in Trump v. Slaughter. That combination is the tell: one guardrail held, another bent toward unitary executive control.

States now face a choice: surrender to federal rollback or build democratic armor. New Jersey chose armor. Governor Sherrill signed the John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act of New Jersey, making New Jersey the first state to enact voting-rights reform after Callais. LatinoJustice described the bill as incorporating strong federal-style protections into state law, including preclearance, expanded language access, voter assistance, and bans on discrimination and intimidation.

Meanwhile, the backlash machine keeps moving into local terrain. Chalkbeat reported that a conservative law firm sued Denver Public Schools over a voting map, alleging illegal racial intent. And in Louisiana, AP reported that Attorney General Liz Murrill was indicted on intimidation and malfeasance charges after accusations that she threatened New Orleans officials who opposed a Republican-led court overhaul. Murrill denies wrongdoing, but AP reported that the dispute involved Calvin Duncan, an exoneree who won an elected court-clerk position with 68% of the vote and says state officials targeted him.

This is the battlefield: maps, courts, schools, agencies, citizenship, prosecutors, and local offices. Democracy will not be saved by nostalgia. It will be saved by state voting-rights acts, litigation, public pressure, candidate recruitment, civic education, and a refusal to let "colorblind" become the new mask for racial rule.

The lesson of Callais is simple: when the Court narrows the doorway, the people must build more doors.