An MS NOW legal analyst ripped into the U.S. Supreme Court after a vote on gerrymandering, labeling it “one of the worst” decisions on race.
Paul Butler unloaded on the high court during MS NOW’s “The Weekend: Primetime,” giving an eyebrow-raising assessment of the recent 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, claiming it shows the Supreme Court does not “respect” the rights of black and brown voters.
“In some ways, this is one of the worst Supreme Court decisions on race ever,” Butler said. “It’s actually worse than Plessy versus Ferguson. Plessy actually required formal equality, separate but equal. With this case, black and brown votes don’t have the same power as white votes.”
Co-host Ayman Mohyeldin reacted with a “Wow.”
(Video Credit: MS NOW)
Last week’s decision struck down a Louisiana congressional map, ruling that race-based gerrymandering violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
“It’s like the Dred Scott decision, where the court said that the black man has no rights that the white man is bound to respect,” Butler contended. “The Supreme Court is saying that the black voter and the brown voter has no rights that it respects.”
Mohyeldin chimed in to say that Democrats need to make this a “central part” of their 2028 campaign.
“I think Democrats going forward have to make this a central part of whatever they campaign on. Whether it’s doing away with the filibuster, Supreme Court reform, finding ways to implement the Voting Rights Act in a new legal framework, has to be core to what they run on,” Mohyeldin said.
Co-host Catherine Rampell suggested Democrats could pack the court as one solution.
“But to Paul’s point, it’s hard for me to even understand what the remedy is that Democrats could offer here, aside from like packing the Court,” she said. “Or is there some — if the Supreme Court is saying that the Constitution does not allow something like the Voting Rights Act to protect the recognition of black and brown votes, where do Democrats even go? What do they offer?”
“So that part, the creation of majority-minority districts, the Supreme Court has said that can no longer be done. Congress can’t change that, states can’t change that,” Butler replied.
“So, Ayman, I mean, you ask where do we go from here? A lot of black people are just leaning on our history, saying, we got through enslavement, we got through Jim Crow, somehow we’ll get through this,” the Georgetown University law professor added.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the map was an “unconstitutional gerrymander.”
“Allowing race to play any part in government decisionmaking represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” he wrote in the majority decision.
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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