How I Expect the Supreme Court to Kill Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Callais (If It Does So): Not By Direct Overruling but By Pretending They Are Simply Reinterpreting the Meaning of Section 2

I’ve written of good reason to believe the Supreme Court is going to sap Section 2 of its power in the Louisiana v. Callais case, being argued on Wednesday. I won’t rehash those arguments here. Instead I want to ask how the Court will denude section 2 of its power to require the creation of minority opportunity districts if the Court goes in that direction.

One possibility is that the Court simply strikes down Section 2 as an impermissible race conscious remedy or, following Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent in Allen v. Milligan , by saying (as the Court said about Section 4/5 in Shelby County ) that time is up because of changed conditions on the ground. (Given that Section 2 is self-sunsetting as racially polarized voting disappears, that may be a very hard argument to make.) Doi