The Supreme Court Case That Could Hand the House to Republicans

Republicans have been redrawing congressional districts this year at President Trump’s behest, but so far it hasn’t seemed to be enough to deny Democrats a reasonable path to control of the House of Representatives.

That might change if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, a case the court hears Wednesday.

Without Section 2, which has been interpreted to require the creation of majority-minority districts, Republicans could eliminate upward of a dozen Democratic-held districts across the South.

Republicans may not eliminate every Democratic-leaning district that they technically could (more on why later), but the party’s aggressive mid-cycle redistricting suggests they would eliminate enough to obtain a significant structural advantage. It’s not clear whether this would occur by next year’s midterm elections, with a court ruling likely next summer, but the new seats would eventually be enough to make Republicans favored to win the House even if they lost the popular vote by a wide margin.