The Supreme Court handed down a decision last month that will likely determine who controls the House of Representatives. Not the voters. The court. Six justices in robes decided the outcome of an election that hasn’t happened yet.
Here’s what they did. They ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that drawing congressional districts to protect Black voting power is unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. Using race to give Black voters a fair shot — illegal. Using race to dilute Black voters into irrelevance through partisan mapmaking — perfectly fine. Same race. Different outcome. Depending on who benefits.
Within an hour of the ruling, Florida’s Republican-controlled House approved a new map designed to eliminate four Democratic seats. Four. In one afternoon. Before a single 2026 ballot has been printed.
This is not a legal abstraction. Up to 19 Black House members could lose their seats. The razor-thin Democratic minority in the House — already outnumbered — just got gerrymandered into near-extinction by a court that was supposed to be above politics.
Rep. Jamie Raskin said it plainly. The court is rushing these decisions to get them done before the 2026 elections. There is no other explanation that fits the facts, the timing, or the 6-3 split that shows up every single time minority voting rights are on the line.
This is what the slow dismantling of democracy looks like. Not a coup. Not a single dramatic moment. Just a steady series of 6-3 decisions, each one removing another guardrail, each one arriving just in time to tilt the next election.
They gutted preclearance in 2013. They gutted Section 2 enforcement now. What’s left of the Voting Rights Act is a name on a document that no longer means what it says.
The 2026 midterms may already be over. Not because of how people vote. Because of how the maps were drawn. And who drew them.
That’s not a court. That’s a thumb on the scale wearing a robe.