Here’s a look at how Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee broke up majority-Black districts. Until today's decision to shelve the redistricting plan, Georgia had aimed to follow suit before the 2028 election.
It remains unclear whether Senate Republicans will still try to push forward on their own with drawing new maps, but the move by House leaders is a major — and potentially decisive — setback to any redistricting effort during this session.
The redistricting frenzy was set in motion by a SCOTUS ruling that weakened the VRA by effectively declaring that many intentionally drawn Black-majority districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. That created an opening for GOP-led states to wipe out districts that typically elect Dems.
If you missed yesterday's story, @nytimes.com did interviews with three of her former clerks and two people familiar with the matter, and obtained a signed apology letter that she wrote as part of a judicial reprimand.
It surfaced a fraught debate about just how far the South has been able to move beyond the racism of the region’s past, where poll taxes, literacy tests and other tactics were used to deny basic rights to Black voters. In interviews, many Black voters said the ruling worried them deeply.
A federal judge who was reprimanded for having a yearslong affair with a police commander in her court chambers, among other ethical lapses, wrote a second round of apology letters to her former clerks this week, saying her “offensive conduct” was “patently wrong.”
