How Democrats plan to fight the Supreme Court’s racist ruling
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/4/30/800030538/courts/how-democrats-plan-to-fight-the-supreme-courts-racist-ruling/
Daily Kos Staff
How Democrats plan to fight the Supreme Court’s racist ruling
After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act on Wednesday to allow Republicans to eliminate as many as a dozen Black Democratic members of Congress with partisan and racist gerrymanders, Democratic elected officials across the country were quick to announce that they will not simply sit back and take it.
The governors of New York and Illinois—states where Democrats hold legislative trifectas—announced that they will take steps to redraw their maps to combat the GOP’s gerrymanders.
For example in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday that she is “working with the Legislature to change New York’s redistricting process so we can fight back against Washington’s attempts to rig our democracy.”
Currently, New York uses an independent commission to draw its congressional maps, and would need to pass a ballot measure to amend that process—similar to what Democrats in California and Virginia did. If successful, Democrats could extract at least four more seats out of the Empire State, according to an analysis by the Downballot.
Related |Republicans are super pissed over Virginia redistricting
“The Supreme Court has been chipping away at our elections for years. It is clearly carrying out Donald Trump’s will with this decision. New York has always led the fight for voting rights and we’ll lead again,” Hochul wrote in a post on X.
And in Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker told reporters that he and the Democratic-controlled Legislature are looking at ways to respond in kind to the GOP’s attempt to draw their way to a House majority. Currently, Republicans hold three of Illinois’ 17 House seats, and could conceivably come up with a map that includes 0 GOP lawmakers.
“We’re not going to stand for it in Illinois,” Pritzker said. “We’re going to push back. We have options for pushing back. And that is under discussion with the legislature even today.”
Indeed, Illinois Democratic state Senate President Don Harmon announced that the legislature is scrapping plans to vote to codify the Voting Rights Amendment in the state, as doing so could hamstring them from being able to draw their maps in a way that combats the GOP’s gerrymanders.
“We want to spend a little bit of time unpacking the Supreme Court decision to make sure we get it right and protect the voting rights of Illinois residents,” Harmon said. “It’s much better and much more important to get this correct than to do it quickly. The worst thing that would happen is if we rushed and there were unintended consequences that undermine people’s voting rights.”
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus endorsed the Democratic plan to fight fire with fire.
“I’d take 52 seats from California and 17 seats from Illinois,” Alabama Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, who may lose her seat due to Republican gerrymandering in her state, said Wednesday at a news conference on Capitol Hill.
Ultimately, this is a race to the bottom.
But if Democrats don’t follow Republicans to the gates of Hell, then it gives Republicans carte blanche to draw their way to a permanent majority—something Republicans are already crowing about doing.
“If Republicans are going to redraw North Carolina, if they’re going to redraw Texas, if they’re going to redraw and gerrymander every one of their states, then unfortunately we have to provide balance to that until we get to the day when we can all finally agree to put this behind us and pass nonpartisan gerrymandering federally,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) said on Wednesday.
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