GOP-led states turbocharge redistricting efforts after SCOTUS ruling

0:01 broke out in Tennessee after Republicans there

0:03 unveiled a n congressional map that cuts

0:05 through the state's majority black district

0:08 and could flip the state's sole Democratic seat,

0:10 delivering them an all-GOP federal delegation

0:13 tomorrow the general assembly is expected

0:16 to return for final votes the night cap panel is still here we had

0:19 a very spirited discussion about all of this in the break Daniela this is

0:23 the state's lone democratic congressional CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE

0:27 LIKELY BEING DRAWN OUT OF HIS DISTRICT.

0:29 WHEN THE V .R .A.

0:32 SECTION TWO OF THE VOTING RANKS ACT,

0:34 WHEN THAT DECISION CAME DOWN LAST WEEK IN THE SUPREME COURT,

0:36 THERE WAS There's a lot of talk about members

0:38 of the Congressional Black Caucus and what this means for them.

0:40 This Democratic district is not represented

0:43 by a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

0:45 Steve Cohen is a Democrat, but he's a white man.

0:47 So this is actually IT'S ESPECIALLY ABOUT BLACK VOTERS

0:51 AND THEIR ABILITY TO SELECT THE CANDIDATE OF THEIR CHOOSING,

0:56 AND THIS MAP, IF IT GOES THROUGH, WILL NOT ALLOW THEM TO DO THAT.

1:01 YEAH, BUT TO BE CLEAR,

1:02 THIS IS A WHITE DEMOCRAT REPRESENTING A DISTRICT IN TENNESSEE,

1:06 BUT WHAT WE SAW IN LOUISIANA WAS CLEO

1:08 FIELDS DRAWN OUT OF HIS DISTRICT AFTER THAT RULING.

1:11 SO IT WILL THAT WILL PREDOMINATELY AFFECT BLACK DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS.

1:15 ABOUT 30% OF THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK AUKUS COULD BE VULNERABLE.

1:18 BUT I MEAN...

1:19 AND IT'S NOTABLE.

1:21 I MEAN, IT'S DRAWING OUT MAJORITY,

1:23 MINORITY PEOPLE FROM different districts could really have

1:27 an impact on who represents who in Congress.

1:30 If you're doing that, especially in a state like Tennessee or Louisiana,

1:33 where there's a lot of black voting communities,

1:37 they're not going to have representation in Congress,

1:39 and they're not going to have a say,

1:41 and they'll be diluted in other districts with predominantly Republican voters.

1:45 And that's not what the intent was in all of this when

1:49 it became drawing districts for people to be represented in Congress.

1:52 That was not the original intent.

1:53 You know, John, across the South, I mean,

1:55 as Daniela is putting it, states are moving with record speed.

1:58 There's Louisiana.

1:59 There is Alabama.

2:01 Kay Ivey is now in China.

2:02 They literally they were in the middle of a tornado warning.

2:06 And the sirens were going off in the in the in the legislature today,

2:09 and they rushed a bill through like I

2:12 literally watched the watch the live stream of Florida.

2:15 They have passed a map.

2:17 There are talks about South Carolina moving,

2:19 they're specifically targeting districts that were drawn

2:22 to protect the voting power of racial minorities.

2:26 I know folks are saying this is━the Supreme Court even is not about race,

2:30 but they THEY ARE LITERALLY, WHEN GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY,

2:32 DRAWING DISTRICTS THAT MAKE IT VERY CLEAR IT IS ABOUT RACE.

2:36 LET'S NOT FORGET, THE JET FUEL POWERING TRUMPISM is

2:41 the fear of a substantial segment of the white population

2:46 that America's becoming a majority-minority country and that white

2:49 people are going to lose their primacy in our culture,

2:53 in our politics, in our economics.

2:55 And so if they can reduce that threat,

2:58 what they see as a threat, they're going to do it.

3:01 And that's exactly what's happening.

3:02 They've done it in ways that really are baffling, you know,

3:07 to take the city of Nashville and carve it in four,

3:10 specifically so that Nashville itself

3:14 isn't represented by one congressional district,

3:16 but pieces of it are suddenly joined with rural communities.

3:20 I mean, in what What universe does it seem fair

3:23 for an urban city to be carved up and mixed with suburban?

3:27 Well, yes.

3:28 When you're looking at potentially the only black representation in the area,

3:31 this is how they justify these moves.

3:34 And the Supreme Court weighing in, you know, repeatedly.

3:38 It's not just this current moment of gerrymandering,

3:41 but how they've taken apart the Voting Rights Act for several years now.

3:45 And to say that the racial injustices of the past are no

3:50 longer enough to explain why you have to have a particular map,

3:54 as if racism and voting doesn't exist today.

3:57 Well, Justice Alito said it It actually does not.

4:00 The same reason they're trying to get immigrants out and birthright citizenship,

4:04 they're trying to preserve place in the United States,

4:09 control in the United States for white people.

4:12 There was a daily episode about this actually from NPR,

4:15 the daily podcast this week,

4:16 maybe it was last week, but the episode talked about that there are,

4:19 it was about political violence and examining that and that there are two

4:23 drivers for how the The anxiety lots of people are feeling in this country,

4:26 one is the changing demographics.

4:27 The other was the wealth gap and I disagree with some

4:30 of it but I encourage people to listen to it.

4:32 What does the White House say about all of this?

4:34 I know they feel emboldened after coming out of Indiana last night.

4:38 But, I mean, there is talk that the governor's

4:42 mansions in Iowa and Ohio could be up for grabs.

4:48 Democrats seem to think that they have a very good chance,

4:51 according to the chair of the Democratic Governors Association,

4:53 of getting those seats.

4:54 Well, I think what's interesting about this redistricting effort is before

4:57 the Supreme Court's decision last week on the Voting Rights Act,

5:00 the sense was that this was really a failed effort.

5:03 They felt as though they didn't really gain much.

5:06 Perhaps it was tilted towards Democrats, even when it comes to redistricting.

5:11 But ever since that decision, there is now this push to really capitalize on it,

5:16 to see where else they could get more seats when it comes to the House.

5:20 And I think, yeah, it puts a lot

5:22 of pressure on President Trump and his political team,

5:24 namely James Blair, whose idea this all was.

5:27 And so now that this decision has come down,

5:29 they're going to try to pick up as many

5:31 seats as possible but really before that decision

5:34 this was really seemed as a fail attempt i just want to take a step back

5:38 because it is i think we were in it every day so we talk about and like

5:42 well this is what they're doing but this is

5:44 remarkable the White House is leading an effort

5:47 across this country according to our own MSNOW

5:50 reporting and others to literally carve up districts

5:54 that they think will make it more palatable

5:56 for them to win as opposed to literally going

6:00 out there to earn the votes in America

6:03 and our democracy we the people are supposed

6:05 to pick the elected officials not the other

6:07 way around can I say it started in Texas.

6:10 Yes, my home state, my beloved home state.

6:12 And it started with President Donald Trump.

6:14 Your point at earlier, Simone,

6:16 I can't remember if it was during the break because we've been talking a lot,

6:19 but wanting to find some extra seats because he was so worried about what could

6:22 happen in the midterms so that consequence led

6:25 to what a Kayla was saying where they

6:28 started panicking because Democrats responded it became

6:30 a tit-for-tat situation and now we're seeing that after

6:33 the Supreme Court ruling with the Supreme

6:36 Court that's largely made up by Trump appointees,

6:38 it's a conservative Supreme Court.

6:40 Now they see a lot of opportunity in the South and it's just going to escalate.

6:45 Let's remember though,

6:46 Republicans take a risk when they do this because the way you the way you get

6:50 more seats is by spreading your Republicans out

6:54 to more places like that's what redistricting is.

6:57 You take the safest members and you make them

6:59 less safe to try to bulk up other districts.

7:02 When you have a president who's in the mid-30s approval rating,

7:05 some of those seats you think you're creating for your party

7:08 are not going to be won by your party.

7:10 They saw that in Texas and those races that happened in 2025.

7:14 I was just say, you know, in the post-Reconstruction world,

7:17 after the 15th Amendment, they didn't repeal the 15th Amendment.

7:21 They gave black men the right to vote.

7:22 They just hollowed it out.

7:23 The courts helped hollow it out.

7:24 The state legislatures helped hollow it out.

7:25 They stopped enforcing it.

7:27 And it took about 88 years between reconstruct between the 15th amendment,

7:31 it was the voting rights act that brought people back

7:34 to the place that we were 88 years before then.

7:37 So I will just note that like this feels like that moment.

7:40 And it's the What the Voting Rights Act did with the federal pre-clearance,

7:44 you could not change even a polling station

7:47 in these specific districts that had a history of racial segregation,

7:53 racial profiling and voting,

7:55 there was another body that oversaw that and allowed

7:59 those changes to happen by removing that.

8:01 Shelby County in 2013 got rid of that one.

8:03 Get rid of that.