REDEMPTION ON SPREADSHEETS

THE SECOND REDEMPTION RUNS ON SPREADSHEETS

Callais turned "partisanship" into a bleach pen for racial power—but states, courts and a new generation of candidates are building the counterattack.

Tennessee has revealed the post-Louisiana v. Callais playbook in its purest form: split Black Memphis among three districts, pursue a 9–0 Republican congressional delegation, and insist that Black voters were merely collateral damage in a partisan operation. A three-judge panel refused to block the map because challengers lacked the required "smoking gun" proving that race—not politics—drove the lines. The lawsuit continues, but voters will enter the August primary under a map that dismantles Tennessee's only majority-Black district.

That distinction is now racism's (white supremacy's) favorite legal hiding place.

In much of the South, Black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats because generations of political conduct shaped that alignment. Mapmakers can study racial data, divide Black communities, predict the racial outcome and then claim they were targeting Democrats. The doctrine demands that plaintiffs separate race from party after politicians have spent decades welding them together.

Defenders of Callais make a serious constitutional argument. Vanderbilt law professor Brian Fitzpatrick contends that assigning voters to districts because of race triggers strict scrutiny, that Section 2 should not require what he calls "proportionalish representation," and that partisan gerrymandering should be attacked through laws aimed directly at partisanship—not through racial classifications. He also concedes that the ruling removed one of the last barriers to unrestrained partisan mapmaking.

That concession is the alarm bell. A theory can sound formally neutral while delivering predictably unequal power. The law now treats a remedial majority-Black district as constitutionally suspect while allowing lawmakers to engineer nearly unanimous partisan delegations from closely divided electorates.

Alabama proves that Callais did not erase every constitutional boundary. A unanimous three-judge panel—including two Trump appointees—refused to restore Alabama's 2023 map because the case involved intentional race-based discrimination, not merely a disputed Section 2 remedy. The judges would not require Alabamians to vote under a plan already found constitutionally tainted.

That leaves America with a brutal evidentiary lottery: produce explicit racial proof and perhaps survive; show racial devastation hidden behind partisan language and perhaps lose.

Representative Cleo Fields embodies the consequence. After Louisiana dissolved his congressional district, Fields chose a December special election for his former state Senate seat, describing the move as a return to his roots. He may continue serving effectively in Baton Rouge—but Washington loses another Black representative because a district disappeared beneath him.

The answer cannot be limited to defending yesterday's map. Georgia historian James Cobb has joined more than 500 scholars urging proportional representation for the House. Multi-member districts could allocate seats more closely to statewide vote shares, reducing the power of one legislature to manufacture winner-take-all monopolies. Such reform would require careful design, but it asks the right question: should representation reflect voters—or merely the lines drawn around them?

States need not wait. New Jersey's John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act creates a private right to challenge discriminatory local practices, state-level preclearance, language assistance and protections against intimidation. Its unfunded provisions still require resources, but it demonstrates that states can rebuild safeguards the Supreme Court has weakened.

And the human infrastructure exists. Racial-justice movements have expanded the pipeline of young Black and Latino candidates prepared to contest local and national power.

The democratic program is therefore larger than restoring one district: enact state voting-rights acts, prohibit partisan mid-decade redistricting, require public map data, adopt independent commissions, explore proportional representation and finance the emerging candidate pipeline.

The old Redemption used violence to remove Black citizens from politics.

The new Redemption lets them vote—then removes the political power from the vote.