This week continued last week's rage on the redistricting battlefield. A quick look back: on April 27, the Supreme Court upheld Texas's redrawn congressional map — a 6-3 decision expected to deliver Republicans up to five additional House seats in the Lone Star state. Two days later, the Court handed down Louisiana v. Callais, ending the race-based districting that had been a defining element of the Voting Rights Act since its passage over sixty years ago, in a very different America.
Together, the two rulings have unleashed a wave of redrawing across the country. Florida moved within an hour of Callais. Louisiana suspended its May 16 primary so it could redraw. The Tennessee House has already approved a new map. Alabama and South Carolina are right behind. The American congressional map is being redrawn under voters' feet, in real time.
To understand why, you have to start in 1965.
The Voting Rights Act, passed in '65, created two enforcement mechanisms. Section 2 was a nationwide prohibition on voting practices that discriminated by race. Section 5 was more aggressive — it required select jurisdictions to "preclear" any change to their election laws with the federal government before it took effect. Move a polling place. Add a voter ID rule. Redraw a district line. Under preclearance, the state or county had to ask Washington first.
In 2013, the Supreme Court ended that regime. Shelby County v. Holder struck down the coverage formula, holding that Congress could not run preclearance in the twenty-first century based on formulas used in 1965 — and inviting Congress to write a new standard based on current data. Congress didn't, so Section 5 effectively went dormant. But President Obama saw an opportunity.
By January 2017, immediately upon leaving the White House, Barack Obama and his former Attorney General Eric Holder had launched a national operation aimed at one thing: controlling who draws the maps. Not winning elections — drawing the maps. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), chaired by Holder, quickly raised over a hundred million dollars and went to work in three places: state legislative races, ballot initiatives to install so-called "independent" redistricting commissions, and litigation under every flag that fit. The lawyer at the center of it was Marc Elias, then at Perkins Coie, later the founder of both the Elias Law Group and Democracy Docket (the media operation that simultaneously reports on and shapes the narrative around the very lawsuits his firm files.)
For nearly a decade, the NDRC argued that race had to be the central organizing principle of every congressional map in America.
Then on April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court handed down Callais — 6-3. The Court held that race-conscious redistricting runs into the Equal Protection Clause and the Fifteenth Amendment, and that states almost never have a compelling interest sufficient to justify it. In plain English: you cannot use race as the predominant factor when you draw a district.
The reaction was immediate. Six states had already enacted new mid-decade maps before Callais — North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio, Utah, Texas, and Virginia. Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina are now racing to follow. On the Democratic side, Governor Kathy Hochul has vowed a constitutional amendment to redraw New York. Hakeem Jeffries has named Maryland and Illinois as targets. Maryland passed its own state Voting Rights Act twenty-four hours before Callais came down, and Governor Wes Moore has stood up a redistricting advisory commission to consider new boundaries.
Legal challenges are already piling up. The Purcell principle, which limits how late federal courts can change election rules before an election, will determine how much of this is actually in place by November. Top political forecasters estimate Republicans will pick up 5 to 10 House seats from the redistricting wars; the high end could reach 13 to 19. In a House where the majority has been decided by a handful of seats in each of the last three cycles, that is a structural shift.
Here is where this leaves us. Both parties are now drawing maps for naked partisan advantage. The pretenses are dropping on both sides. The underlying machinery is the same.
In one sense, that's an improvement. Sorting voters by skin color and packing them into districts was always a constitutional embarrassment dressed up as civil rights. Callais ended that. But honesty in the rationale is not the same as good representation. A brazenly partisan map can still produce a House where most members never face a competitive election, and where most voters live in a district whose outcome was settled in a state legislature five years earlier.
The only check on either party's worst impulses is informed citizens showing up — at the state house, the county clerk's office, the local board — and refusing to look away.
If you want to see the voting-rights landscape this story is reshaping, we've built an interactive map showing where federal preclearance coverage, same-day voter registration, and post-Callais redistricting all overlap, state by state.
We also tracked Louisiana's mapping efforts, covered a new conviction in a New Jersey voter fraud case, and got the scoop on the DOJ's expanding investigation into Fulton County's 2020 election operations — plus podcasts, apps, and more. Check it out 👇
In Case You Missed It...
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Where Voters Rights Stand
Three eras of voters rights, on one map. See which states were under federal preclearance, which allow same-day registration, and which are redrawing their congressional maps after Callais.
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LA Begins Redrawing Maps
Since the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's congressional map, lawmakers have been rushing to redraw district lines — a redistricting battle with national implications ahead of the midterms.
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Fraud That “Never Happens”...Happened
A former New Jersey mayoral candidate has pled guilty to forging voter registration applications — adding to growing concerns over election integrity, registration safeguards, and public trust in the process.
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DOJ Expands Fulton Election Probe
The DOJ issued a grand jury subpoena seeking information on everyone involved in Fulton's 2020 election operations. Fulton moved to quash it. Separately, a judge denied the county’s attempt to recover the election-related records previously seized by the DOJ.
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Lead From Where You Stand
The Bottom Line
Redistricting determines the structural shape of representation for the next ten years. Court rulings are moving faster than most Americans realize, the 2020 election is still under federal investigation, and voter fraud cases that were once waved away as anomalies are now producing convictions. Keep pressing for truth. Transparency only happens when citizens refuse to look away.
What You Can Do
- Read Callais. The opinion is short enough to read in an evening, and it's the most consequential election-law ruling in a generation.
- Find your district. Pull up your state's congressional map and check whether your district is being redrawn. If it is, look at how the lines are changing and who that affects. Most state legislatures have a public redistricting portal.
- Check out the interactive map above. It will show you where your state sits across preclearance coverage, same-day registration, and post-Callais redistricting. Send the link to one person who thinks none of this affects them.
- Track legislation with LegiTrack. Set alerts on bills moving through your state on elections, redistricting, and voter rolls.
- Join TTV Now to connect with grassroots leaders in your state, access our apps and trainings, and get plugged into the work happening near you.
- Pray for discernment, courage, and steadfastness in the days ahead.
- Please donate if you can. Every dollar funds the work — investigations, technology, trainings, and the legal fights that keep election integrity moving forward.
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