The Left’s Continued Obsession With Race and Voting—and Why Courts Keep Feeding It

Left-wing activists sued Louisiana for not having enough black-majority populated congressional districts. But after creating an additional black-majority district, the state was then sued by voters for creating the district on the basis of race, which is illegal. Also on the legal front, activist judges are imposing nationwide injunctions to try to stop President Donald Trump from carrying out his promised agenda—injunctions they do not have the authority to impose. Will the Supreme Court ultimately step in to stop it?

Tony Kinnett interviews legal expert Hans von Spakovsky to understand the legal ins and outs of these cases. Von Spakovsky is the manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Watch the segment from The Daily Signal’s “Tony Kinnett Cast” syndicated radio show above or read the lightly edited transcript below.

Tony Kinnett: So, let’s dig right into this. We’ve got a Louisiana redistricting case? I’ve heard every kind of accusation thrown around. Can you break it down a little bit for us?

Hans von Spakovsky: Sure. It’s not actually that hard a case to understand.

The state did new boundary lines for its congressional districts in 2022. It has six congressional districts. One of those six was designated as what’s called a “majority minority” district to satisfy parts of the Voting Rights Act. That’s a district in which black voters are actually a majority, so they’ll be able to elect their candidate of choice.

But the state got sued. NAACP and others sued them saying, “Well yeah, you gave us one out of six. You should have given us two out of the six congressional districts. You should have created a second one in which black voters could elect their candidate of choice.” They claimed that the Legislature was acting in a discriminatory fashion.

Their evidence on that was pretty much nonexistent, really. The basis for their claim was proportionality. What they said was, black voters are about a third of the population of Louisiana, therefore, we ought to get two of the six seats.

Kinnett: So yeah, some kind of weird racial apportionment argument. Do they know how it sounds? Or is this just me?

von Spakovsky: No, I mean, that was the essence of their arguments, but they tried claiming discrimination. Now, the problem with that claim is that the Supreme Court has said on prior occasions that is not a basis for a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act.

And in fact, the Voting Rights Act very specifically says that you cannot file a claim under the Voting Rights Act based on that proportionality argument. But in any event, they got a court to agree with them. So, the Legislature went back, drew up a new congressional district map for the state, and this time, they did create two black congressional districts.

But they got sued again. This time, by voters saying, “The only factor you used in drawing up that second district was race. And you can’t do that.”

And, in fact, another court said, “You know, you’re right. That violates what the U.S. Supreme Court said in an old case called Reno v. Shaw, in which the Supreme Court said race can be one of many factors you may take into account when you’re drawing new boundary lines, but it can’t be the prominent factor if you do.

That violates the one person, one vote standard of the 14th Amendment, the equal protection doctrine.

Kinnett: We get into some really weird places, really quickly. I mean, as at least in far as 2025, New Mexico has the highest Hispanic population as a percentage of its total population, just up 50%. So, we’re saying that half of New Mexico’s congressional districts have to be majority Hispanic because they’re going to assume, well, Hispanic people would all vote the same. It’s a mix of antiquated and just goofy.

von Spakovsky: But it’s also very discriminatory.

Look, the Reno v. Shaw case where the court said you couldn’t do that, the state of North Carolina had basically created a black district that looked like a barbell. Only it was these two large black areas of the state connected by—what ran in between them?—the interstate.

Kinnett: Yeah, that very thin bridge. Exactly.

von Spakovsky: And this second district they created in Louisiana is very similar to that at one point. It stretches between these two black districts—something like over 200 miles apart. And the line at its widest is about a mile wide. So clearly, in my opinion anyway, they have once again violated prior Supreme Court precedent, and hopefully, the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the voters who brought this lawsuit.

Kinnett: Do you know what it actually reminds me of when I look at the map? It reminds me of a map of Croatia in Europe. It’s like this weird sea that like goes around and then comes back around and it is—first of all, I live in the 6th Congressional District of Indiana. I have very little in common with someone in Columbus, Indiana, which is the southern portion of that particular district, and I’m in the eastern central side of the state. Yet still, you know, it kind of works as a functional district.

I’m trying to imagine how you would have a functional district in which you leave your house, you walk through another congressional district to reach the office of your own congressperson.

I mean, it really does reek of discrimination. I know it’s an age-old comparison to make, but can you imagine the horror of a district manipulated to be a white-only or white-majority district. I mean, it would be rightly scorned.

von Spakovsky: It was. But look, Croatia, that’s actually a good comparison, because what the folks who brought the original lawsuit really want to do—these are the folks that said you have to create a second district—they really want to balkanize the United States.

And they want to balkanize us and divide us by race. That’s the only important factor to them. In the redistricting process, they don’t seem to believe that people who, for example, live in the same city might have the same interests in how the local government represents them, even if they come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The folks pushing this idea, they just don’t believe that. They think your race defines how you think.

Kinnett: I was a teacher flying with one of my grandparents down to Florida, and we had a layover in Atlanta. And when I was in Atlanta, I was standing in this long line at a Popeye’s fast food restaurant and there was a black gentleman in front of me who was from New England, and he spoke like it (with a very heavy New England accent). And the lady, who was also black, who was a server, who was actually walking up the line taking orders on paper bags, was from Atlanta. And although they looked the same, they had a lot of trouble communicating with each other.

And so, I had to step in—having a little southern drawl in my background myself—and I got to do a little communication translation there.

It’s amazing to me to think that the NAACP might actually consider two individuals from two completely different cultures, part of that same—like you call that—that necessity of balkanization into racial groups, despite having next to nothing in common with each other.

It’s insulting.

von Spakovsky: It is. But you know, what’s most important about this Louisiana case is that, when we do redistricting, it’s time to get away from considering race at all. And that’s obviously what was going on.

When these lines were drawn, it was drawn at the urging of the Biden Justice Department, the NAACP, and all these, frankly, radical left-wing groups who want race to be the predominant factor in politics. And if there’s anything these recent elections showed, it’s people are tired of that. They don’t want that anymore.

Kinnett: So, the kind of the latter question that I have here is on some of the recent disparity between some of the more originalist justices on the Supreme Court.

I know that there have been concerns, probably more prevalent to other cases, but maybe it’s befitting that I get used to asking this question if we’re reviewing Supreme Court cases over the next couple of months: Do you see justices like Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett holding to more of an originalist perspective on this? Or maybe as originalist as one can be in upholding this law?

Or do you maybe see more of a siding with liberal justices? How do you hear it going so far?

von Spakovsky: Look, I think the best example of what’s going on here is a decision we had about two weeks ago. You may have seen that a lower court judge told the Trump administration that it had to pay out $2 billion in U.S. Agency for International Development money and ordered the administration do it within 36 hours.

That went up on an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to take the case. You had a 5-4 decision. It was Chief Justice John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, siding with the three liberals.  

They didn’t say that on the merits that this was OK for the judge to do, but they refused to take the appeal saying, we’re going to let this work its way through the lower courts, then we’ll look at it.

The four conservative justices, led by Alito, wrote a stinging dissent.

Kinnett: It was the most, and I don’t mean “acrid” as an insult, but I mean “acrid” as in its potency. It was one of the spiciest. I mean, it made me want to lean back and say, “My stars!” You read that dissent. It was incredible.

von Spakovsky: It was. But the point that Alito was making was we shouldn’t wait for the process of going through the lower courts because it is so basically outrageous. A federal district court thought he  had the unchecked power to do this, and the Supreme Court should have stepped in.

That’s the dividing line going on right now, and I hope that the chief justice and Amy Coney Barrett realize that with dozens and dozens and dozens of injunctions being issued all over the country, this sitting back waiting for these cases to work their way through the lower court process is the wrong thing to do.

The court’s got to step in—not in a single case, and not only talk about that case, but also in essence—tell the other courts, you’ve got to stop doing this. You have to stick to the standards for issuing an injunction, which none of these other courts are doing.

I hope there’s a change of mind by the chief justice on this.

Kinnett: I agree. I think that the best analogy for this—I often try to frame it like a minor car problem. There might be a little something wrong with your car’s engine, and it can still drive, and you may not think that particular problem is enough of a reason to get it fixed right away.

But if you let that problem persist, that minor problem, it might affect other things in the car. It might cause damage while you’re waiting to take it to the mechanic to get it fixed. And that’s really how I see a lot of these court cases, you know, by these federal judges running amuck and issuing these national injunctions and stays and freezes and whatever else outside of their authority.

They’re creating not just a legal mess, but a mess all throughout how the government functions, how laws are interpreted, how laws are carried out. And that kind of chaos is not something to be admired in the name of legal patience.

von Spakovsky: I agree with you, and actually, your car analogy is a good one. And that’s why the Supreme Court has got to take one of these cases on—one of these emergency appeals—and step in and stop it.

We may have the next case kind of on the way. As you know, the court of appeals in the District of Columbia is hearing arguments, again, on an emergency stay, to stop the federal judge in Manhattan who told the president, you have to bring all these Venezuelan criminal gang bangers back to the U.S.

And I hope the court of appeals acts. But if it doesn’t, that’s going to get appealed to the Supreme Court, and that’s when the chief justice will have another opportunity to step in and stop this kind of behavior.

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