THE IMPEACHMENT MAP

ROBERTS IS NOW ON THE IMPEACHMENT MAP

Rep. Steve Cohen just put Chief Justice John Roberts where the Court has put millions of voters: inside an accountability fight.

On May 21, Cohen introduced H. Res. 1309, six articles of impeachment against Roberts, alleging high crimes and misdemeanors tied to politicization of the Court, minority-rule entrenchment, wealth favoritism, executive impunity, emergency-docket arbitrariness, and failure to recuse. The resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

The timing is not accidental. Cohen’s first article names Louisiana v. Callais as a central example of the Court intervening in elections while primaries were underway, helping trigger a wave of mid-decade redistricting. The resolution alleges that Louisiana had more than 100,000 ballots cast when the Court acted, and that Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina moved rapidly after Callais.

That is the civic nerve. In Callais, the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, while saying Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act must enforce the Constitution, not collide with it. Civil-rights groups say the ruling sharply weakened one of the last major tools Black, Latino, Native, and other voters of color have to challenge vote dilution.

Cohen’s articles go further than one case. They argue that Roberts helped build a constitutional architecture where partisan gerrymandering is treated as beyond federal repair, race-conscious remedies are treated as suspect, emergency orders reshape elections with thin explanation, and wealthy interests gain greater political power.

That is why this is more than a symbolic impeachment push. It is a public indictment of a Court accused of turning democracy into a lawyered shell game: one doctrine says courts cannot stop partisan gerrymandering; another doctrine says race-conscious repair may violate equal protection; another emergency order lets maps change close to elections; and then officials call the result “the people’s choice.”

Alabama shows the machine in motion. AP reported the Supreme Court set the stage for Alabama to eliminate one of two largely Black congressional districts before the midterms, after Alabama officials pointed to Callais as the reason to end the court-ordered map. WBRC reported that, in Birmingham federal court, Alabama argued the legal foundation had changed after Callais and that lower courts should reconsider whether race predominated in remedial districts.

South Carolina shows the next move. Reuters reported that its Republican-controlled House advanced a map targeting Rep. Jim Clyburn’s seat after pressure from Trump, while Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee had already moved against Democratic-held seats after the Supreme Court weakened protections for districts largely composed of Black or Latino voters.

Critical race theory helps name the structure. White supremacy in 2026 does not need a literacy test when it has a map, an emergency docket, a narrowed Voting Rights Act, and a Court willing to call racial repair the constitutional injury. The old regime blocked Black voters at the courthouse door. The new regime lets them enter, then redraws the room.

Cohen’s impeachment articles may face long odds. But their political function is plain: they force the country to ask whether Supreme Court power is accountable when it reshapes elections, weakens civil-rights remedies, and accelerates minority rule. The Court cannot demand public trust while behaving like a redistricting partner for one side of the aisle.

The answer is civic pressure without illusion: hearings, subpoenas, ethics rules with teeth, court reform, state voting-rights acts, federal voting-rights legislation, and mass public education. If the Court can put Black voting power on trial, then the people can put the Court’s legitimacy on trial too.