In the span of nine days, two court decisions have fundamentally altered the architecture of American elections and setting the clock on democracy back by six decades.

First, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, the crown jewel

of the civil rights movement in a case brought by a January 6th participant. And yesterday,

the Virginia Supreme Court threw out a voter-approved redistricting referendum that was meant to counter-aggressive

Republican gerrymandering elsewhere in the country. Together, these two decisions have turbocharged racist redistricting across the country,

weakened black and Latino voting power, as well as the voting power of white Democrats,

and undermine the likelihood of a fair election this fall.

The consequences are not abstract. Republicans could net as many as

16 to 18 additional seats in Congress without getting any more votes from the redistricting wars that are now

underway. Six states and counting have already answered Trump's call to redraw their maps for maximum Republican

partisan advantage. Louisiana delayed its own primary to rush through new doctored maps.

As recently as two days ago, Tennessee has eliminated its only Democratic congressional district.

And yesterday, Republicans in South Carolina

advanced legislation to delay the state's congressional primaries for two months, while they

draw out of existence the only district represented by a Black House member, the Democratic

Congressman James Clyburn, who was arrested protesting segregation in the 1960s.

In a post on X, Congressman Clyburn wrote, quote, Republicans are trying to break apart

South Carolina's 6th District, not because voters demanded it, but because Donald Trump

requested it, end quote. As one Democratic strategist put it, Pandora's box has been opened

and doesn't have a lid.

This is not democracy.

This is the engineering of elections by people who know they cannot win an election fairly conducted by a population fairly represented.

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