Marc Elias: This is the End of the Voting Rights Act

Summary

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Bulwark Takes — “Marc Elias: This Is the End of the Voting Rights Act”

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Marc Elias (Democracy Docket)
Date: May 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this urgent and insightful episode, Tim Miller interviews voting rights attorney and Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision that significantly weakens Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The discussion centers on Louisiana’s redistricting chaos, the immediate and national implications for minority voting power, and the looming threat of aggressive gerrymandering in several states ahead of the 2026 midterms. The conversation blends deep policy expertise with the palpable anxiety of witnessing long-standing voting protections dismantled in real-time.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Louisiana as Ground Zero for the Voting Rights Crisis

[02:28]

• Background: After receiving new census data, Louisiana redrew its congressional map, creating only one (heavily gerrymandered) Black opportunity district.
• Initial Legal Challenge: Marc Elias and his team sued, arguing a second majority-Black district, centered on Baton Rouge, could be drawn — and they won in a district court.
• Supreme Court Involvement: White voters (self-styled “non-African American voters”) sued, calling the remedial map a “racial gerrymander.” The Supreme Court not only heard arguments but ordered a rare re-argument questioning the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act itself.
• Decision’s Impact:

  “On Wednesday of this past week, the Supreme Court issued an opinion, 6-3, authored by Samuel Alito, that effectively guts the Voting Rights Act.” — Marc Elias [04:10]
  “They go to some pains to say, no, they’re not overturning the Voting Rights Act. That’s just a bunch of semantics… minority voters throughout the country… are now facing a prospect of Republicans attacking the districts that have given them political power.” — Marc Elias [04:22]

• Louisiana's Draconian Response:
  • Governor Jeff Landry declares a state of emergency to halt elections and invalidate votes already cast:

  “The state of emergency was that people were voting and he wanted that to stop.” — Marc Elias [05:34]

2. The Immediate Chaos: Canceling Ongoing Elections

[08:00]

• Overseas and Military Voters:

  “The people most at risk of disenfranchisement…are actually military and overseas voters.” — Marc Elias [08:21]

• Legal Precedent and Process:
  • Citing the Purcell Doctrine: normally, even an illegal map is allowed if it’s too close to an election to change.
  • The governor is unilaterally stopping the election, which is, as Elias notes, “very Trumpian.”

  “If it can, Tim, it can’t be because the governor unilaterally decides it, right?” — Marc Elias [08:58]

3. Supreme Court’s Suspicious Timing

[12:03]

• Accelerated Decision:

  “What’s odd, I don’t know what word you use—curious, suspicious—that it seems to have come after many states already had their primaries, but right before a bunch of southern states are right at the teeth of it.” — Marc Elias [13:18]

• Political Calculations: Miller raises concern that the Court seems to have issued its opinion early enough to affect southern states’ primaries but not others, suggesting political motivation in the rush.

4. Broader National Implications for 2026

[14:59]

• Other States Likely to Follow:
  • Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia—all mentioned as states with risks for similar aggressive, racially-driven redistricting.

  “We’re looking at Louisiana, obviously. Florida…Alabama needs the Supreme Court to do something to free them up, to…take away one of those two seats.” — Marc Elias [14:59, 17:08]

• Tactical Delay:
  • Ron DeSantis, for instance, may delay signing new maps to trigger lawsuits at maximum advantage.
  • Some Republican maps could backfire by overreaching—potential short-term gains versus long-term risk.

5. Can Democrats Counter with Gerrymandering?

[18:17]

• Where Can Democrats Gain?
  • A handful of states (CA, NY, MD, OR, IL) offer redistricting potential, but actual seat gains are limited—maybe 9 seats from CA and VA combined, another 3–4 elsewhere.
• Elias’s Calculation:

  “The only way we’re going to get a national prohibition against gerrymandering…is if Republicans think that they are not just playing with the House’s money.” — Marc Elias [19:55]

  • Argument: Only by seriously out-gerrymandering Republicans will Democrats ever force a bipartisan ceasefire or legislative fix.

6. The Future: Zeroing Out Black Representation in the South

[22:47]

• Extreme Gerrymanders:
  • Tim Miller points out that the process underway could leave “basically every black representative in the South…drawn out of their seat outside of Georgia.”
• Republican Calculation:

  “Does Steve Scalise…really want voters from New Orleans in his district? …even if it doesn’t directly threaten [re-election], it may change their primary politics.” — Marc Elias [23:00]

  • The real risk: disruptions to safe Republican incumbents versus complete elimination of minority opportunity seats.
• Political and Societal Reckoning:

  “I do think that that has changed in the Trump era…especially Trump 2.0. He won again. And this has sent the signal out to all of the Republicans that you do not have to care about that, that you can let your most based instincts fly and not suffer any punishment.” — Tim Miller [27:26]

7. Culture Shifts Beyond the Law

[29:51]

• Legal Precedent Becomes Political Culture:

  “These court decisions…affect the culture. And the culture after Citizens United was not just that corporations can make independent expenditures…What it did is create a cultural shift of money in politics…My fear is that…with redistricting…they will use this as an excuse at the local level, at the city council level, at the state supreme court level, to just racially gerrymander.” — Marc Elias [29:51]

  • Not just congressional districts: local and state bodies now greenlit for extreme racial manipulation.

8. Local Example of Disenfranchisement

[31:10]

• Calvin Duncan’s Case:
  • A formerly incarcerated Black New Orleanian wins local office, only to have the office shut down by Governor Landry before he can serve.
  • Marc Elias’s Stark Contrast:

    “You know, people got behind him. And the guy who did not commit a crime…And we have right now in the White House someone who is convicted of…” [31:44]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The state of emergency was that people were voting and he wanted that to stop.”
  — Marc Elias [05:34]

• “The only way we’re going to get a national prohibition against gerrymandering…is if Republicans think that they are not just playing with the House’s money.”
  — Marc Elias [19:55]

• “I do think that that has changed in the Trump era…He won again. And this has sent the signal out to all of the Republicans that you do not have to care about that, that you can let your most based instincts fly and not suffer any punishment.”
  — Tim Miller [27:26]

• “My fear is that…with redistricting…they will use this as an excuse at the local level, at the city council level, at the state supreme court level, to just racially gerrymander.”
  — Marc Elias [29:51]

• “The people most at risk of disenfranchisement…are actually military and overseas voters.”
  — Marc Elias [08:21]

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Timeline of Critical Segments

• [02:28] — Louisiana’s post-census map, court challenge, and Supreme Court escalation.
• [04:10-04:22] — Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, national implications.
• [05:34] — Louisiana governor’s “state of emergency” halts elections.
• [08:21] — Disenfranchisement of overseas/military voters emphasized.
• [12:03-13:18] — Suspicious timing of the Supreme Court’s anti-VRA opinion.
• [14:59] — National scope: other states preparing to redraw maps to dilute minority votes.
• [19:55] — The case for aggressive Democratic gerrymandering as a path to reform.
• [22:47-23:00] — Risk of eliminating Black representation in the South.
• [27:26] — Norms break down in the Trump era; loss of “shame” constraint against racism.
• [29:51] — Court rulings change culture, creating new permission structure for racial gerrymanders.
• [31:10] — Local illustrative disenfranchisement story (Calvin Duncan).

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Tone and Style

The conversation is urgent, candid, and at times darkly humorous, blending legal technicality with plainspoken analysis. Tim Miller adds local color and pointed questions; Marc Elias provides depth, historic context, and a call to arms for both continued litigation and hardball political tactics. Both voice frustration and deep concern at the acceleration of anti-democratic maneuvers, acknowledging the limitations of both law and culture in the face of persistent authoritarian-style power grabs.

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Summary Takeaways

• Louisiana’s election crisis is a test bed for attacks on minority voting rights, enabled and accelerated by a Supreme Court increasingly hostile to the Voting Rights Act.
• States across the South—and soon elsewhere—can now act with impunity to redraw maps, nullify votes, and target Black representation using racial gerrymandering.
• The only effective near-term retaliation, according to Elias, is for Democratic-controlled states to gerrymander even more aggressively, in hopes of restoring “mutually assured destruction” and ultimately a negotiated solution.
• Culture is shifting alongside law: The constraints that once cautioned Republicans against explicit racism in redistricting have collapsed in the Trump era.
• The episode closes on a sobering, local illustration: Even Black officials elected by overwhelming margins can find their victories nullified by raw executive power.

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Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

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[Mark Elias]

There's not a lot of rest, but I actually think in many respects I've admired Sarah Longwell for a long time and I think in some respects she and I share this in common, which is that there is a value not only in independent media. There's a value not only in sort of unafraid and not having both sides, but also being sort of in the fight at the same time that you are running a media outlet, you know, is like, brings a perspective. So I find, you know, I religiously watch your podcast and listen to your podcast, but I find her focus groups really interesting because she's like, she's not commenting from like an outsider perspective, she's commenting from someone who's actually talking to these voters. And so yes, I litigate a lot of cases and Democracy Docket has a large staff now, but I think it helps inform kind of at least my commentary.

[Tim Miller]

I keep seeing new names pop up in the articles I'm reading on Democracy Docket, so that's a good sign. Go subscribe to it right now. To keep up on what's happening in our fight for democracy. I wanted to grab you most pressingly on what's happening in my home state of Louisiana. We can broaden it out a little bit.

[Mark Elias]

I was going to say, what congressional district are you in so that I can orient Myself not only answer the audience questions, but solve your specific problems.

[Tim Miller]

I'm in the one Democratic district that will remain. I'm in the heart of New Orleans. It's going to be very, I mean, they probably could figure out a way to draw us out of a district altogether, but it'd be pretty challenging. So the second district is the one that kind of combines outer New Orleans up to Baton Rouge. This is a district that was added. Well, actually, why don't you just tell the backstory? I'm not the expert here. Explain what happened in Louisiana, what that second majority minority district was, how that emerged, and why it's being challenged now.

[Mark Elias]

Sure. So after the state of Louisiana got its new census data, it drew a new map and it created one black opportunity district. And as you point out, that district was also pretty sprawling. You know, lest anyone think that was a model of compactness and that was an intentional decision by the Republican legislature picture. And we, my law firm and I, we looked at this and we realized that it was actually a violation of the Voting Rights act because you could draw a second black opportunity district more centered on Baton Rouge. Although you're correct, it does. You know, however you draw it in Louisiana because of the, the, the location of the black population, there's going to be, you know, there's going to be some sprawl to it. But we sued and we won. And that's, I think the important thing to understand is it went to a three judge panel, including conservatives on that panel, and we won. They said that it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The result was that Louisiana redrew its map and created a second Black opportunity District, which is what is in place today. A group of white voters, or as they refer to themselves, non African American voters then sued to challenge that map that was passed to remedy our case and said that it was a racial gerrymander. And that case went up to the U.S. supreme Court court and the U.S. supreme Court did something that is quite unusual. In fact, the only other case that I'm familiar where they've done this in recent times was Citizens United. They ordered the parties to re argue the case after it had been argued already. Re argue the case on the question of whether or not the Voting Rights act itself was constitutional. Now that's not a good sign when justices tell you to re argue the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. And on Wednesday of this past week, the supreme court issued an opinion, 6, 3, authored by Samuel Alito that effectively guts the Voting Rights Act. You know, they go to some pains to say, no, they're not overturning the Voting Rights Act. That's just a bunch of semantics. In some ways, it's even more cynical than if they just said they were striking it down. But the net effect of that is, is that minority voters throughout the country, because Section 2 applies in every state, including in Louisiana, are now facing a prospect of, of Republicans, you know, attacking the districts that have given them political power. And you know, I have to say, Tim, if you were looking for a mini Trump authoritarian move, you would start with Louisiana, because it is not that. The legislature then was convened in a special session. No, no, no. Your governor issued. Yeah. Declared a state of emergency. Like, like, you know, like as if there was a hurricane, as if there was like civil unrest. He declared a state of emergency, and the state of emergency was that people were voting and he wanted that to stop.

[Tim Miller]

I want to correct one thing that I said, not you, it was me. It's my district, Torry Carter's district that goes to New Orleans and then kind of goes up towards Baton Rouge is relatively compact. Actually, we're pretty close to Baton rouge. It's the 6th district that they, that they're now overturning that went from Baton Rouge up to Natchitoches. And I want to challenge you, Mark Elias, to spell Natchitoches.

[Mark Elias]

I can't do that.

[Tim Miller]

I'm just joking. It's N A T C H I T O C H E S. We do not pronounce things correctly in Louisiana. Now I will tell you important fun fact that I can bring.

[Mark Elias]

This is my Louisiana trivia. People oftentimes ask how did I get into like recounts and post election, all that. And the answer is Louisiana Senate election in 1996 between Mary Landrup and Woody Jenkins. And Mary Landrieu was a squeaker.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Mark Elias]

And that was the first post election contest I was ever involved in. I was doing some work actually for the Senate Rules Committee on that.

[Tim Miller]

That's a good backstory. Okay, so we, we have two elements. This I want to talk about. Like there is like the broader, you know, Voting Rights act and what the implications are outside of Louisiana. But just in this narrow case of Louisiana, because I think it's the most outrageous and what I want to focus on. So the ruling comes down. Voting has now officially, as we take the Saturday morning, has started in Louisiana. Like I could go early vote right now if I wanted to. I changed. I re registered back as a Republican to vote for Nikki Haley against Trump. So I could that I was like So I could, in theory, go choose in the Iran Iraq war. Choice of the Senate primary right now between Julia Ludlow and Bill Cassidy, it's hard to know which one is worse. So I'm, I still have a few weeks to decide whether I want to pick a side in that. But anyway, I could go do that right now if I wanted to. So the ballots are printed. Absentee ballots have been sent. As you guys, in your filing, you indicate that some absentee ballots have been returned, actually even Correct. So votes have been cast in the various House primaries with the map as it currently sits, and Jeff Landry's executive order cancels those votes. And I guess now they're going to try to come up with a plan where they'd redraw new maps and have new House elections later this year.

[Mark Elias]

That, that is what he plans. And a couple of things I just want to emphasize here. The first is that the reason why ballots have gone out and have been counted is for, among other reasons, that federal law, a federal law that Republicans have trumpeted called the MOVE act, which ensures that our men and women in uniform overseas, along with others who live overseas, have an opportunity to vote for, required those ballots to go out weeks ago. And so the people who are most at risk of disenfranchisement by this executive declaration of emergency are actually military and overseas voters overseas. So, like, you know, for all of the, the garbage that Republicans have, have spewed my way and your way over the years about how, oh, we need to make sure that members of the military can vote and we need to make sure that, you know, they're not disenfranchised. This, this is, this is going to impact them more than any. So that's number one. Number two, you know, look, I, I don't believe that a state like Louisiana can simply cancel an ongoing election because it doesn't, like, you know, it, it's had second thoughts about the map it wants to use. And if it can, Tim, it can't be because the governor unilaterally decides it, right? I mean, like, this is why I say it's a bad warning sign for the fall. And it's very Trumpian because, like, Landry didn't say, you know, let me get the special session in place and have the legislature do something about it. He issues this very, you know, ornate certificate. It's very Trumpian, you know, and is like, I'm declaring an emergency in all caps, bold italics.

[Tim Miller]

His team said something to the effect of that the federal court order was to stop the House races as part of their rationale. Is that right? Is that right? Is that what the ruling did?

[Mark Elias]

No. So here's the deal, and this gets a little technical, but the Supreme Court struck down the existing map. That is true.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Mark Elias]

But anyone who has followed the law or redistricting or voting rights knows that there's this thing called the Purcell Doctrine, which says that even sometimes when there is an illegal map, you have to use the illegal map because it's too close to the election.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Mark Elias]

And indeed, indeed, when we first struck down the Louisiana map in 2022, it didn't go into effect in 2022 because the Supreme Court, on the behest of Louisiana, said it was too late to implement. And that happens all the time. The way we will know what the answer is is when the Supreme Court issues what's called its mandate. So the Supreme Court issues an opinion that says, like, this is what we think. And then after that comes the official document that it goes to the lower court and goes to the parties that says, okay, this is what's happening. This is now, like, what you. What happens immediately right now. So what you have in Louisiana, what you have in Alabama, even more egregiously, is states just saying, well, you know, we think this is what the Supreme Court has. This is what the Supreme Court said, and we think this is what it means. And so we're just going to unilaterally act. There is, as we are recording this on Saturday, pending pleadings in the U.S. supreme Court in both the Louisiana and Alabama situations to ask the Supreme Court to. From both sides. One is saying, you know, send the mandate and clarify that this should all be blocked. And the other saying, you haven't sent the mandate. Tell them they don't get to do this because you all may invoke Purcell or lower court may invoke Purcell.

[Tim Miller]

This is. I get conspiracy brain going a little bit here or something. Seems a little fishy. The court. It feels like the court rushed this, and the court has a long session ahead. As anybody who's been following the court knows, a lot of times, the big political decisions like this come at the end of the session, which is usually late June. Had they had this ruling in late June, then obviously they couldn't have changed the maps for this year. It's certainly not in the Louisiana case. The election would have been over. And so I do wonder if there was some political motivation for. For rushing this through. Is that. Am I. Am I becoming a crank? If I.

[Mark Elias]

No, I mean, look, I think that I think that everyone expected that this opinion would come at one of two windows. It would either come in January because they would say, look, we heard it last term. It was reargued at the beginning of this term. And we want to give every state, Democratic and Republican, north, south, east, west, we want to give everybody the benefit of this ruling. Or as you say, it would come in the final weeks of June. Right. At the very end of the term, which is when you would normally expect it, to be honest with you. Right. Like these big decisions tend to come at the very end. But the assumption was if they weren't going to put it at the very end, they were going to put it at the very beginning so that everybody could absorb this. So that, for example, as Virginia and California redrew their maps, you know, they too could take into effect these things. Illinois, Maryland. Right. Because Section two doesn't just apply in the Deep south, unlike the provision struck down in Shelby county in 2013, Section 5. But what's weird, what's odd, I don't know what word you use, curious. Is suspicious that it seems to have come after many states already had their primaries, but, like, right before a bunch of Southern states are right at the teeth of it. I mean, think about it this way, Tim. It came the day that Florida was holding its special session to redraw its map, in which Florida had to make a decision whether to obliterate even further on partisan and racial grounds. District. So it is odd timing for this opinion to have come in late April.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So just to sum up, in Louisiana, this seems like Jeff Landry's trying to steal a seat this election. It would be very easy for them to just move forward, say we're going to redraw these maps for 2028 once everything is. Is dealt with. This election's already started. But he doesn't want to do that. He wants to try to steal a seat to make Mr. Trump happy.

[Mark Elias]

Look, I think that's right. And I think that if there's one thing we've learned about the Trump era is that enough is never enough. So, yes, they're going to try to steal one seat. They will eventually try to steal both.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So let's move. Yeah, let's move on to. And I definitely think they'll try to come from the other. The second, the Troy Carter see Louisiana, too, as well.

[Mark Elias]

And then who would get. Would you ever be in Mike Johnson's district?

[Tim Miller]

I think I would probably be in Scalise's district if the.

[Mark Elias]

Okay, well, that's almost as good.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. If they really tried to gerrymander the hell out of New Orleans, I think I'd probably end up in Scalise's district. But who knows, they might draw one of these maps where it's like, it goes from Audubon Park Zoo, like, all the way up to Shreveport. You know, who knows there's anything is possible? Okay, so what are the implications brought beyond that? You mentioned Florida, Alabama. It looks like Kiva might just calling a special session as well. I discussed a little bit on the pod yesterday. Tennessee, there's some rumblings that they might try to draw Memphis out of their seat as well. What is the potential scope of this for 2026? Like, just looking at this year.

[Mark Elias]

Yeah, I think you've. I think you've captured it. Right. So we're looking at Louisiana, obviously. Florida. We're waiting on the governor's signature there. Ron DeSantis is not eager to sign this quickly because we've told him we're going to sue him the moment he signs it. So he's going to wait as long as possible to try to run as much clock.

[Tim Miller]

So did this really change that Florida map at all? Like the Florida map originally came out, it looks like they're trying to pick up four seats. It seems kind of risky to me. I don't know. They put a couple of their guys in greater danger, I think. But are they going to change it again, or. No?

[Mark Elias]

No, it's that map. And I actually think two things. Number one, I think this opinion actually in some ways undercuts their argument for reasons that we don't have to get into, although I'm happy to. But the second thing is, Tim, I think you've pointed something out that people think is a flaw, but is actually a feature of. I think what DeSantis is doing. I do think the Florida map is going to backfire on them. I think actually part of the Texas map may backfire on that. I think what Ron DeSantis is thinking is, look, I get credit with Trump for doing the thing today.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Mark Elias]

Like, I won't get blamed by Trump if it backfires because, like, he'll blame cheating and the Democrats and mail in ballots or whatever. But I get the credit now. And that is like, you know, you cover so many topics that you could. That you could say that about where, like, his sycophants do the dumbest thing in the short term for them, you know, like the indictment over seashells on the beach. That will never work out in the end, but they just Figure they please

[Tim Miller]

the guy now and then, you know, in a year, in theory, if the Republicans ever recover politically, the map becomes more friendly, you know, potentially, you know, so, so it's maybe some short term loss for long term payoff in the way that they redraw, redraw the map and not even a loss. And I just think that Florida is trying to draw up four seats, but if you look at it, it's like it could cost them two. And so it ends up still a net two positive. Right. So, so if you have Florida, don't

[Mark Elias]

beat them in court.

[Tim Miller]

Right. If you don't beat him in court, so then you have Florida, a couple seats. Louisiana, they're trying to steal one. What, how do, how do you know Alabama and Tennessee, look, I'm not as familiar with like, what's the timeline, how strong is their ability to, you know, is their case.

[Mark Elias]

So Alabama, they've got a big problem and frankly, the governor recognized this in her first statement, which is that they're actually like under a court order right now. So they actually, like, that's why I said there are two cases that have rushed back to the Supreme Court because they need, they, Alabama needs the Supreme Court to do something to free them up, to create, to take away one of those two seats. I don't think it would be more than one, but they need that to happen and they need to happen fast. So that's where Alabama stands. Tennessee, as you point out, they, they have indicated that they want to go after the Memphis seat. You know, we will have state law claims to bring if that happens. You know, the courts in Tennessee are not the most friendly courts, but, you know, we'll take our, we'll take our shots. The Republicans in South Carolina have made some noises, although it is more the members of the delegation and the Republican Party than it is necessarily the governor or people in power. Kemp has said no, that he won't. I think Kemp will stand by no, because he's retiring, but he's obviously coming under pressure to do, to do something. To do something in Georgia.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, got it. So all in all, if we're just looking at 20, 26. I remember the last time we talked about this, you sent me the video. So we went back and refreshed our memory. You said that the Democrats needed to try to get 15 to 20 seats to offset what the Republicans are going to do. I saw you on one of your other media hits recently that you said that cumulatively the Democrats should try to shoot for 15 to 20 seats. I'm not an expert on redistricting, but, you know, I've been reading up on it, and I just don't kind of see where those seats come from. And California, potentially six, but that has some challenges. I want you to talk about the California situation. Maryland, Oregon, Illinois are the easiest ones to redistrict because there are no state laws against it. But there are only five Republicans in those states. So I, I mean, you know, it's hard to get, what, more than three out of those states. Where, where are all these seats coming from? And, and is it even legally possible to do it before 26?

[Mark Elias]

Okay, so you have to add New York to the, to the, to that list which, which is almost as big as California in terms of potential seats that are at play. I also put Virginia on that list, which is a little bit of leaning into what I think the outcome of

[Tim Miller]

the Virginia elections will be between California and vi. Virginia, Democrats look like they got about nine. Where is this thing going to net out? Looking at the Mark Elias crystal ball,

[Mark Elias]

I will point out that when I was advocating 15 and 20, people thought I was crazy. People thought like, you know, like, you know, that's crazy.

[Tim Miller]

What a hack, you know. Yeah, what a hack. He's trying, you know, he's trying to what, rig the system for his. Right. Like, that was kind of the.

[Mark Elias]

Yeah. And I just, and I just want people to understand what my reasoning was then and what it is now because I've upped the number. Is that the only way we're going to get a national prohibition against gerrymandering. The only way that's going to happen is if Republicans think that they are not just playing with the House's money. If they do five and we do five and then they do two and we do two, they never have a disincentive to go forward because, like, the worst they're ever going to wind up is matched. The reason why I think Virginia was so important is that Virginia, for the first time, potentially flipped it the other way. And now Republicans had to make a calculation about whether or not this was going to net out. Well, now obviously this decision changes that. Look, I think for 20, 26, I hope every Democratic governor looks at what they can do between the here and now, between here and election day, and redraws their maps. That is not a lot of places. Okay. To be honest with you, there were more places back when, when you and I talked about it, you know, several months ago. But that doesn't mean it.

[Tim Miller]

What places are still left. I would love to know Maryland.

[Mark Elias]

So it would be places where there have not yet been primaries. Right. Like, so you could, you could go down the list of, of Democratic states, Democratic controlled states where, where they're not even president primaries. And again, I'm not advocating. That is not really my point about, about this for 2026, because this is largely baked for 2026. My point though is that. Just take a look at, for example, Tim, what they did in California, okay. Which was the context in which you and I talked about at the time. They did five seats. I said at the time, do 9, 0 at every Republican in the state. Like, just like, you know, just get rid of them all. And they also had its sunset. And so what that means, Tim, is that you and I will be back on your podcast at some point, you know, in two years, four years when Democrats are facing this again in California. So, and I'm not knocking. I think Governor Newsom did a tremendous job and I'm a big fan of what he did there.

[Tim Miller]

I'll be in exile podcasting from Montevideo. No, I'll be talking about how we squeeze out the four more California seats.

[Mark Elias]

My point is that New York, you know, Governor Hochul has already said they're going to look at it like, I just think Democrats need to get out of the nonpartisan redistricting business and free up states like New York, New Jersey, additional seat in Maryland, you know, probably an additional seat in, in Illinois, an additional seat in Washington and Oregon, additional seats in Colorado. Like, I just think we need to understand that the Republicans are going to cut up your state of Louisiana and others like it. And it is going to shine like a freshly cut ruby. I mean, it is going to be red from top to bot and sparkling. And if we don't match that and exceed it, we will never bring Republicans to the table that they feel like it is worth it for them to make a deal.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So at the end of this, you

[Mark Elias]

really think, do you disagree with that?

[Tim Miller]

No, I don't. That's what I was gonna ask you at the end of this. It seems to me like basically every, every black representative in the south will be drawn out of their seat outside of Georgia. I think at the end of this

[Mark Elias]

process, I mean, so here is the question that I don't know the answer to. Number one, obviously we'll bring as many legal claims as we can, including intentional discrimination claims. So, like, nobody to think we're giving up on litigation. Obviously we're not. We're going to, We're. We're suing in Louisiana, we're. We're suing it. We'll sue in Florida. We'll sue everywhere we possibly can. But I think the biggest question that I have, which is really a question I'm going to turn back on you, okay, is Republicans know these voters have to go somewhere, right? They have to go into someone's district, right? So, like, does Ski. Does Steve Scalise, just to use him as an example, does he really want voters from New Orleans in his district? Or will some of these states just say, you know what, we will leave some of these districts? Because, yes, we could split it up. But, like, our incumbents have positioned their political profiles and positioned their operations for a certain, you know, set of voters. And, and doing this, even if it doesn't directly threaten their reelection, it may change their primary politics. It may change just the overall dynamics of, of their race.

[Tim Miller]

This all goes back to. Of political gravity. And this is why margins matter at how much the Democrats win by this year really matters. I mean, anytime a question like this comes up, I go back to, like, Biden's win and how I was sad the morning after because I was like, I know this isn't over. Like, we didn't beat them by enough to brush this back. And when we're on with Nicole, we talk about this like, should we be optimistic or pessimistic? And there are reasons to be both. And on the optimistic side, you can see that Trump's, you know, in some areas, you know, his ability to manipulate people and get authoritarian ends are being limited as he gets less and less popular now. He's still doing a bunch of authoritarian stuff. He's still doing a bunch of illegal stuff. But you can see that it's not like the wind isn't at his back in the same way it was last year at this time, right? And so that matters. And I feel like the same thing comes up to this election, you know, because that question is, how far will Republicans go on redistricting, and do they want to take on the political risk of bringing black voters from New Orleans east into their district or whatever? The question is, like, do they think they can get away with it? Cause I think Steve Scalitz would be happy to have a district where he has 30% black voters from New Orleans east that never vote for him if he feels like he can get 58% every time and not have to worry about it. And so this is why it's incumbent upon the Democrats, I think, to take this moment where Donald Trump is fucking up the economy where he's hurting people's lives, he's making people's lives worse and go into those districts and try to make a case to some of those voters. Right. And you see what happens if these guys get scared. You saw it in Indiana, right? Like Republican voters will eventually will do their, will make decisions out of their own interests. Right. And if they think that they can make the entire south red and eliminate all the black representation in the south, they're going to do it. I could sound like that. They, oh, they're going to call us racist. So we won't do it. They don't care about that. Like they'll do it. But if they think it's going to backfire or they think, forget even backfire, if they think that it even risks backfiring, right. Then maybe they're like, yeah, whatever, who cares? We'll let, we'll keep Troy Carter's district. And so, you know, I think that's where the legal and the political side intersect here in a real.

[Mark Elias]

Yeah. So I mean the consequences of that or the, the implication of that, which I agree with, is number one, that no politics is local. Like if all, if we say all politics local, no politics is local. Because what you're saying is they actually don't care what voters they have as long as the margins are what they are. And then the second, which I think has longer term implications for the country is that, you know, George Bush signs the Voting Rights act in 2006, it passed 98 to 0. Ronald Reagan signs it in 1982, calls it the crown jewel of American liberty. We can debate how much they meant it, how much they didn't meant to mean it. But it's just as Scalia actually said during oral argument ones Republicans felt compelled to say those words like they, they, they, they felt like they could not be on the other side of a bill called the Voting Rights Act. Right. And what you're saying is that you think that zeroing out in a state like Louisiana or a state like Mississippi or a state like Alabama, just saying like, yep, we are, there are no black representatives in these, these historic places, you think does not bring with it any sense of reprobate, like, you know, like that there's like a sense that like they have crossed a line, that they don't want to be called a race.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And I do think that that has changed in the Trump era. And this is why, you know, we can't get into people's hearts and souls about Reagan and Bush. You know, I think that at some level, some Republicans in the past genuinely cared about this, and some were, you know, acting out of Machiavellian desire to, you know, to stay in power. And we're worried about what, you know, what would happen to their reputation if they were seen as doing something this aggressively racist. Right. I just think in the Trump era, especially Trump 2.0, he won again. And this has sent the signal out to all of the Republicans that you do not have to care about that, that you can let your most based instincts fly and not suffer any punishment. And I think that they will continue to do that until they suffer punishment. And I think that's why it's important to defeat them overwhelmingly at the ballot box. And I just. I think that's the only way at this point. I mean, who knows? Maybe in some future, you know, some future Republican 10 years from now, 20 years from now decides that they want to reinvigorate the spirit of the Declaration or whatever, that could happen, but it's not happening in the visible timeline. And the only way to get them to roll it back is to demonstrate punishment. My last thing on this, we're way over, but you saw this with Black Lives Matter, actually, very acutely. There was like a small period of time after George Floyd died for like, maybe even a month, right. It happened for a little while, right? Where you heard in focus groups, even Republican voters are like, I don't want to be seen as racist. Like, I don't want to be seen as a racist person. And so Republican politicians were responding to that, and they weren't. Mitt Romney was marching in Black Lives Matter protests. Other Republicans weren't doing that, but they were, for the most part, going out of their way for a little while to try to demonstrate that they wanted racial comedy, that they wanted the country to get together. And then things started happening. Some Republicans were like, no, fuck that. Like media figures and started speaking out and saying racist stuff. And they got bigger audiences. And then the riots started happening in Kenosha and Republicans started dipping their toe into the water. And now it's like, now it's. They're totally the opposite. You know, you couldn't hear. You couldn't imagine a Republican saying a nice thing about George Floyd right now. Right. And so I just think that that was a. That was the test. Like, they. You saw that they would pretend to care if they thought it was going to cause them political harm. Once they realize it didn't, you can see the reality.

[Mark Elias]

So one of the things I'm really worried about which you saw there, which we saw, frankly, after Citizens United, is that these court decisions, they say the narrow thing that they say, but they also affect the culture. And the culture after Citizens United was not just that corporations can make independent expenditures, which is what the case held. And conservatives always pointed out that that's all it said. What it did is it created a cultural shift of money in politics. And my fear, and I think that that happened with the backlash from the right on George Floyd and the election of Donald Trump. And what I fear is that where we are right now with redistricting will not only be something that signals to Republicans in the south that they can dismantle districts that are more than 50% black, with a history of racially polarized voting and racial cohesion, which is like the Section 2 test, they will use this as an excuse at the local level, at the city council level, at the state Supreme Court level, to just racially gerrymander. Right. Which is the. Which is still not allowed under the Constitution. Right. Like, this is like. I'm not talking about not creating districts. I think they will go out of their way to crack black power, because that is, I think, the cultural signal that they will have gotten to that point.

[Tim Miller]

I'm going to end with this. It's. It's super local, so people want to care about it. But Calvin Duncan, who spent 30 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, he got out. He ran for a local office here, it's called a criminal clerk office in Orleans Parish, won the office in November. And Jeff Landry shut down the office the week before he was gonna take office. So obviously, he's a black New Orleanian who was elected by 2/3 vote beaten incumbent, actually, for that office. You know, people got behind him. And the guy who did not commit a crime. Who did not commit a crime.

[Mark Elias]

And we have right now in the White House someone who is convicted of.

[Tim Miller]

So we are going to see more of that. We're going to keep monitoring it. And I appreciate you very much, Mark. I want to do. I don't know when we're going to have fucking time for this, but I would like to do kind of a longer thing with you about this question of money in politics and whether if we get over this fight, what the possible reforms even are after the Supreme Court ruling. So I don't know. Well, maybe in August. Is it ever boring enough for us to do that for 45 minutes? We'll figure it out. We'll try to. I look forward to it all right. Thank you very much. Mark Elias. Go subscribe to Democracy docket. I appreciate your time brother. Everybody else will see you soon.

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