'Nightmare' scenario laid bare as Supreme Court kicks off 'race to the bottom': analysis

The Supreme Court has fired the starting gun for a "race to the bottom" in a gerrymandering war that will be "a nightmare for democracy," according to a new legal analysis.

In a Slate report on Thursday, political writer Jim Newell cautioned that the GOP has "carte blanche" to gerrymander after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais, a decision that weakens protections in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 against racial redistricting.

"The political effect of the decision in Callais will be to set off a new wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering," Newell wrote. "The redistricting scramble ahead of the 2028 election will make the battle we’ve seen thus far look like a skirmish."

Newell warned that the GOP could now target congressional seats at least a dozen "predominantly Black and Hispanic districts" in the south, on top of the five that Republicans now expect to gain in Florida.

Sean Trende, a senior elections analyst from RealClearPolitics, laid out a long-term and more severely damaging situation that will be hard to get out of.

“This is increasingly kind of the nightmare scenario: What happens if one party gets hit with a wave in 2030?” Trende told Newell. “Where you just get Republicans controlling almost all of the states, or Democratic trifectas in all of the states. Then you can really draw maps that make it impossible for the House to flip. Our institutions are fragile enough as it is. You can get real problems.”

John Bisagnano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, told Slate that "Republicans have been consistently threatened." He added that "all states need to be ready for a call to action" in response to Republicans' power grab.

"Democrats across the country, in any place where they have the opportunity to do so, need to be prepared to take action to combat what's about to happen across the south."