Redistricting Chaos Explodes Right After VRA Ruling

0:00 less than a week after the Supreme Court go to the Voting Rights Act,

0:02 you got Alabama and Tennessee already racing to redraw

0:05 their congressional maps in emergency special sessions this week.

0:07 they're targeting black majority districts because they want to get

0:09 up to three more Republican seats in the US House.

0:12 just to get us on the same page again last week,

0:14 the Supreme Court flipping section two of the Voting Rights Act,

0:16 just on its IT ruling that Louisiana's majority

0:18 minority district amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

0:22 Democrats called it a death sentence for the VRA.

0:23 Trump basically told state legislatures to take the win and run with it.

0:27 And what you saw was Alabama hearing him,

0:28 With Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filing

0:30 motions literally the day after the Louisiana decision.

0:33 and he's looking to appeal the court rulings

0:34 that are blocking Republican drawn maps from 2023.

0:36 and all those court ordered maps were supposed

0:37 to be locked in until after the 2030 census, they might not survive this week.

0:41 you've got Governor Kay Ivey saying

0:42 the special session will wrap within five days.

0:44 and Republicans currently hold five of Alabama's seven House seats,

0:46 they think that these new maps will give them all of them.

0:48 Marshall adding that Alabama's primaries are on May 19th,

0:51 saying that the timing is critically important,

0:52 which is essentially just code for if

0:54 the courts don't bless this fast, they're stuck.

0:56 so for the Democrats that are hoping to slow this down,

0:57 that tight window is kind of their best chance.

1:00 the, with this power grab I would say do not count on it.

1:02 right in Tennessee, they're playing the same game,

1:03 but from a slightly different angle.

1:04 see, governor Bill Lee's special session kicks off tomorrow,

1:06 and their target is district nine,

1:08 which is currently the only Democratic held seat in the state.

1:10 the VRA was really the main thing that was keeping their district nine intact.

1:13 And so with that protection weakened,

1:14 you have Republicans seeing a path to flipping it

1:16 and just giving themselves a full sweep of Tennessee's House delegation.

1:19 Right.

1:19 And they've been waiting for this.

1:20 This is not new behavior from them.

1:22 back in 2022, Tennessee Republicans carved Nashville

1:24 into three pieces and flipped the fifth district.

1:26 and now they're in Memphis, which is the most heavily black city in the state.

1:29 but also Tennessee has a timing problem

1:30 that its own leaders are openly worried about.

1:32 But the candidate qualifying period ended in March, primaries hit in August.

1:35 And so Democrats are hoping that the courts just simply rule

1:37 that it's too close to Election Day to bulldoze the map.

1:39 now leave his party is calling it, representation issues,

1:42 saying that we owe it to Tennesseans to ensure

1:44 our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters.

1:47 which, I will say, sounds noble until you

1:49 literally you look at a map and you go,

1:51 oh, one district you're specifically targeting here is

1:54 the one anchored in a majority black city.

1:56 honestly, this part, you know, it's just my opinion.

1:57 I'd, I'd appreciate if everyone was just honest at this point, Right.

2:00 Trump and his conservative Supreme Court,

2:01 they push the country into an end game situation.

2:04 Everyone's to fight for power.

2:05 For power sake, though obviously for different reasons.

2:07 and Republicans, they're not dumb.

2:08 They're looking at the polls.

2:09 They're like, oh my God,

2:10 everything that Trump is doing right now, it's just so unpopular.

2:13 Republicans want a chance to not just be completely wiped out by the electorate,

2:16 we got to suppress the vote.

2:17 We got to change things up.

2:19 And on the Democratic side, I think more Democrats are realizing, oh,

2:21 we can't fight with our hands behind our back if we want to get to it tomorrow,

2:24 where, among other things, there's a national gerrymander band.

2:26 We've got to fight for power sake.

2:28 Now.

2:28 Otherwise we're gonna get completely wiped out.

2:30 right, if you don't do something now, door will get closed.

2:32 You'll never get another chance.

2:33 and with all this, you've got black lawmakers and civil

2:35 rights groups not being subtle about what they think.

2:36 This is.

2:37 Senator Raphael Warnock, for example, from my home state of Georgia,

2:39 said that the redistricting fight is a continuation of the effort to roll

2:42 back the civil rights movement and saying that this is not a new method,

2:45 it's a Jim Crow method.

2:46 also, even before the Supreme Court ruling,

2:48 you would Congressman Shamari figures saying that gutting section two would,

2:51 quote, drastically reduce the number of realistic

2:53 opportunities to elect black members to Congress.

2:55 and Alabama Democrats are calling the special session a blatant power grab

2:58 by Republican leadership in Montgomery

2:59 to eliminate seats held by black Democrats.

3:01 and then again with this news, of course,

3:02 we have to remember it is more than Tennessee and Alabama.

3:04 I mean that both for the 2026 midterms as well as the 2028 general election.

3:08 Cards are being played right now that are forcing hands,

3:10 and things have to get crazy before they can get normal again.

3:13 so it seems, at least until the end of 2028,

3:15 extreme gerrymandering is just on the menu.

3:17 It's the name of the game.