Melissa Murray

Nobody wanted that.

The court wanted it.

And they wanted to get to that question.

And part of how they're distinguishing is because of that question and the unique circumstances around that.

Well, I think there's two strategic reasons.

One redounds to the benefit of the court.

The other redounds to the benefit of non-African-American litigants.

Let me explain the court benefit first.

This is a court that for almost every year that it has had a conservative supermajority has overruled some precedent.

So Roe versus Wade in 2022, the affirmative action precedents in 2023, Chevron in 2024.

I think if they had actually gutted the Voting Rights Act, basically overruled jingles, which was the jurisprudence that really laid out the factors for drawing these majority-minority districts, that would have raised some eyebrows from a lot of people who think this court is really on one and probably needs to be curbed.

So there's that issue.

I don't think the court could say...

were just completely throwing out the Voting Rights Act.

And for understandable reasons, it would have really galvanized, I think, popular antipathy against the court.

The other thing, though, that simply preserving Section 2 does is that it leaves Section 2 available to be used by...

non-African American litigants every time a state tries to remedy.

So blue states trying to draw opportunity districts, now non-African American litigants can come in and say, that violates my rights.

So in California, for example, this new redistricting effort that is being done to counteract what is happening in Texas and in other red states is

If non-African American voters say that the state has drawn this for the purpose of consolidating racial minority groups' political power, then all of a sudden you have a Section 2 claim that can be brought and that the court is probably going to look at.