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Welcome to The Logoff: After a major Supreme Court decision, President Donald Trump is pushing Republicans to restrict them more aggressively.
What is happening? On Thursday, Trump said in a post that Tennessee’s governor would “work hard to fix” the state’s congressional map to “give us one more seat” in Congress.
It is the latest sign that, following the Supreme Court’s new opinion, Republicans will try to pick up more seats before the 2026 midterms by advancing in many different states, including Tennessee, Louisiana and Florida.
What is the context? On Wednesday, the Court issued a 6-3 decision in Louisiana vs. Callais repeal a provision of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits racial profiling.
As my colleague Ian Millhiser pointed outthe result of that decision is not only that the six conservative justices of the Court have further weakened the Voting Rights Act; the decision is a blanket endorsement of the most extreme robbery plots possible, and Republican politicians — including Trump — are taking notice.
How did this start? Trump also started all this last year, when his White House decided to pressure Texas into a rare mid-decade redistricting plan. Texas managed to create about five more Republican seats in the US House – probably – by redrawing his maps, but in the process, started a major war.
What does the calculation look like? Until recently, it looked as if the redistricting battle would backfire on Republicans, or end in a stalemate. Earlier this month, Virginia voters approved a referendum to draw new maps that create four more Democratic seats, giving the party a slight edge nationally.
Since then, however, Florida has gotten involved; earlier this week, his legislature passed new maps that gained four new Republican seats. On Thursday, Louisiana too suspended its parliamentary primaries that were about to begin to give it time to redraw its maps in response Callis decision. And if Tennessee Republicans do well in Trump’s post, the party could pick up another seat as well.
And so, it’s time to leave…
Hello readers – if you, like me, live in Washington, DC, I have special good news for you. Today, the sun will do set at 8 p.m here for the first time this year, and we won’t get sunset earlier than 8pm again until August. With that in mind, let’s go away and enjoy the sunshine – we’ll see you back here in May (which is, somehow, tomorrow).
