Behind the legal jargon is a stark question: when race and party overlap, can states sidestep the Voting Rights Act by insisting their maps target Democrats, not Black voters? In Louisiana, Black residents are one-third of the population but long secured just one of six congressional seats. When a second Black-majority district was finally drawn, white voters sued, and a lower court agreed the fix itself was unconstitutional.

Now the Supreme Court is entertaining arguments that would let states defend almost any map as mere “politics,” even when the effect is to lock minority voters out of power. Advocates warn that as many as 19 congressional seats could be reshaped, potentially entrenching Republican control of the House. With some states, like Mississippi, scrambling to build their own protections, this ruling may decide whether the next decade of American elections is competitive—or structurally rigged.