Conservative supreme court justices appear skeptical of key provision of Voting Rights Act – live | US supreme court
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Supreme court begins oral arguments in Voting Rights Act case
Oral arguments have started in the case challenging the constitutionality of a redrawn congressional map in Louisiana.
Janai Nelson, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, kicked things off. She noted that if the map at the center of this case is deemed to be “unsatisfactory”, the proper recourse is to “remand and adopt” one of the many alternative maps that address the section 2 violation of the earlier map.
Key events
Lauren Gambino
A group of 15 Democratic governors on Wednesday announced the formation of a multistate health initiative designed to improve public health coordination and emergency preparedness in response to the turmoil caused by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s changes across federal agencies.
Leaders of the Governors Public Health Alliance say the newly formed “hub” will serve as a national platform for public officials and public health experts to monitor disease outbreaks, coordinate pandemic preparedness, share data, and pool resources such as vaccines and medical supplies. The states involved represent roughly one in three Americans.
“California is proud to help launch this new alliance because the American people deserve a public health system that puts science before politics,” California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement. “As extremists try to weaponize the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and spread misinformation, we’re stepping up to coordinate across states, protect communities, and ensure decisions are driven by data, facts, and the health of the American people.”
The alliance builds on previous regional collaborations, including the West Coast Health Alliance formed early in the pandemic by California, Oregon and Washington. Officials say the new national structure will serve as a forum for sharing best practices and navigating shared challenges.
Newsom joined governors from Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington in launching the alliance.
The initiative is supported by GovAct, which describes itself as a “centralized platform for collaboration across governors’ offices – incubating, launching and supporting alliances of governors”. Other alliances it supports are Governors Upholding & Fortifying Democracy, chaired by Democratic governors Jared Polis of Colorado and JB Pritzker of Illinois, and Governors Working Together to Defend & Expand Reproductive Freedom, which includes 23 Democratic governors.
A White House official tells the Guardian that Donald Trump’s press conference at 3pm ET, during which he’ll be joined by the FBI director, Kash Patel, is an “update on crime-reduction progress”.
We’ll bring you the latest lines when it gets started.
Trump to host fundraiser with high-dollar donors for new White House ballroom – report
Donald Trump will host a so-called “legacy dinner” tonight to establish the new $200m ballroom at the White House, according to CNN.
The invitation said the dinner, which will be held at the White House, is meant “to establish the magnificent White House Ballroom”, plans for which the administration announced in July.
A White House official described the event to CNN as a fundraiser for the ballroom and other beautification projects and noted that a number of high-dollar donors would be in attendance, though they didn’t give specific names.
Outcry after US strips visas from six foreigners over Charlie Kirk remarks
Joseph Gedeon in Washington and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Civil liberties advocates are warning that the Trump administration’s decision to strip visas from at least six foreign nationals over social media posts about Charlie Kirk’s killing represents yet another example of dangerous government crackdowns on protected speech.
On Tuesday, the state department announced it was systematically identifying visa holders who “celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk”, declaring in a social media statement that “the United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans”.
The visa cancellations represent an escalating government-wide campaign to suppress criticism of Kirk, who was killed last month. The administration cut visas for nationals from Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Paraguay.
“You can’t defend ‘our culture’ by eroding the very cornerstone of what America stands for: freedom of speech and thought,” Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), said in a statement to the Guardian. “The Trump administration must stop punishing people for their opinions alone.”
Visa revocations under these parameters “are censorship, plain and simple”, Carrie DeCell, the Knight First Amendment Institute’s senior staff attorney and legislative adviser, said in a press release.
Mere ‘mockery’ can’t be grounds for adverse government action – whether revocation of broadcast licenses or revocation of visas. While the government can revoke visas for many reasons, the first amendment forbids it from doing so based on viewpoint.
The full report is here:
‘This delay is intentional’: Adelita Grijalva demands again that House speaker Mike Johnson seat her
Away from the supreme court for a moment, Democratic representative-elect for Arizona Adelita Grijalva has demanded again that House speaker Mike Johnson seat her.
Johnson has refused to swear her in while the House is out of session amid the ongoing federal government shutdown, even though there is no rule that prevents him from doing so (he previously swore in two Florida Republicans while the House was in recess earlier this year).
Grijalva, who won a special election in her state over three weeks ago and whose election was certified by Arizona’s secretary of state yesterday, is poised to provide the final signature on a bipartisan discharge petition needed to force a floor vote on whether to demand that the Trump administration release the Epstein files to Congress.
“This delay is not procedural, it is intentional,” she said outside the US Capitol this morning. “He is doing everything in his power to shield this administration from accountability. That is not leadership, that is obstruction.”
Yesterday evening, a group of Democrats and Grijalva marched to Johnson’s office, chanting “swear her in” and demanding that she be seated. This morning Johnson accused them of “storming” his office, showing “disdain for law enforcement” and playing “political games”.
Grijalva said yesterday: “I have not had one word from Speaker Johnson, not one word. We sent a letter. Now our attorney general is getting involved, because this is taxation without representation.”
Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, has threatened legal action against Johnson for failing to seat Grijalva, and Grijalva said she has also been exploring her legal options for officially claiming her seat.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pressed Edward Greim, who is representing the “non-African American” challengers who appealed the 2024 congressional map and is challenging the interpretation of aspects of the Voting Rights Act, on whether he was suggesting that it was only a state’s “intentional discrimination” that needed to be remedied.
Greim replied that if a race-based remedy is involved, it must be in response to “intentional discrimination”.
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the 15th amendment is not limited to “intentional” discrimination, to which Greim said the court has never held that the amendment addresses anything other than discrimination that is intentional.
Sotomayor pushed back that this was not true and that the court has evaluated whether the effect of something is discrimination, regardless of whether that was the intent.
David Smith
in Washington
A predominantly Black crowd has gathered outside the supreme court, as it continues to hear a case that threatens to gut the Voting Rights Act.
There are about 200 people, some holding signs and wearing T-shirts that say “Black voters matter”, “It’s about us”, “We will be heard”, “Protect our vote” and “Protect people, not power”.
One man is waving a giant black and white flag that proclaims: “Fuck Trump.” Another is holding a handmade sign that references former justice Thurgood Marshall and current justice Clarence Thomas, both African Americans: “Thurgood is watching you Clarence.”
Various speakers are coming to a lectern, their voices booming through loudspeakers. Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter told the crowd: “We are blessed with power … We’ve got the power to move mountains … We’ve got the power to make good trouble … This court ain’t nothing but another mountain for us to move … When we believe, we win.”
Some distance away, half a dozen police officers are standing guard outside the court, which is covered in scaffolding.
Hashim Mooppan, the principal deputy US solicitor general who is representing the Trump administration, is now speaking before the court.
Supreme court appears poised to undercut key provision of Voting Rights Act
As oral arguments at the supreme court continue, the conservative justices, who make up most of the bench, appear sympathetic to the case that new Louisiana congressional maps – which added a second majority-Black district – violate the constitution.
At the heart of the case is section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits electoral maps that dilute the voting power of minority groups. Lawyers for the state of Louisiana, a group of “non-African American voters” and the Trump administration say that the court needs to do away with the 2024 map. If the court agrees, it would ultimately set a precedent that makes it considerably harder to bring redistricting lawsuits on the basis of race, and undercut section 2.
Edward Greim, representing the “non-African American” challengers who appealed the 2024 congressional map, is now up.
“It is time to reach a question this court has never reached and hold that section 2 alone is no compelling interest for racially gerrymandering citizens like the appellees,” Greim said. “The court should affirm and direct the district court to order a remedial map in time for the 2026 elections.”
Aguinaga pushed back against Nelson’s argument that any gutting of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act would be “catastrophic”.
“I think there’s been a lot of sky is falling rhetoric from the other side in this case,” Aguinaga said. “I’m not I don’t know what our legislature would do if the court rules in our favor … I don’t think the sky is going to fall.”
A post about the possible impact in today’s case. If the supreme court rules to scrap section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, it could possibly cost House Democrats up to 19 congressional seats, according to a report by two progressive voting rights groups.
“It’s enough to cement one-party control of the US House for at least a generation,” said Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter.
In responding to a question by justice Samuel Alito, the Louisiana solicitor general said that the Black population within Louisiana doesn’t satisfy one of the pre-requisites of the Gingles test – namely that the minority population is geographically compact.
“You can identify pockets of black voters, but they are dispersed across the state there’s no way you can conceive of that population as compact,” Aguinaga said.
An important note here, Louisiana has switched sides since March, the last time the supreme court heard this case.
“We’ve taken the position that section 2, insofar as it requires race- based redistricting, is unconstitutional,” Aguinaga said.
Now up is Benjamin Aguinaga, the solicitor general of Louisiana.
“Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our constitution,” he said in his opening argument, adding that racial stereotypes are a consequence of the practice.
“They assume, for example, that a black voter, simply because he is black, must think like other black voters, share the same interests and prefer the same political candidates, and this stereotyping system has no logical endpoint.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Nelson to answer the constitutionality question of the maps in question, particularly how it relates to the court’s 2023 decision that ruled race-based college admissions violate the Equal Protections Clause of the 14th amendment.
Nelson said that the court “made it clear that it is still constitutional to use race to remedy specified discrimination”.
She noted that decision, from two years ago, is “working more in our favor, we believe, than supporting our opponents”.
Nelson was just asked by Justice Elena Kagan what the consequences would be if the court got rid of section 2.
“I think the results would be pretty catastrophic,” Nelson said. She went on to say that many of the Black representatives in Louisiana alone were elected from districts that exist because of the Voting Rights Act.
One particular term we’re hearing a lot about in Nelson’s arguments is the “Gingles Test”, which determines if a minority group is being subjected to voting dilution.
“Gingles is an exacting test. It is data obsessive. It brings in experts and many other forms of evidence to establish a racial violation,” Nelson said.
There are three criteria for a minority group to meet Gingles, which came about after a landmark supreme court decision in 1986. Here’s a breakdown, courtesy of ScotusBlog.
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The affected minority group is sufficiently large to elect a representative of its choice.
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The minority group is politically cohesive.
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The majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to usually defeat the minority group’s preferred candidates.
