CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS

Hidden beneath the veneer of the Supreme Court’s recent redistricting case, Louisiana v. Callais, Sup.Ct. Slip Opinion of April 29, 2026, lies a pernicious heresy of Constitutional Law. In an earlier redistricting case, the Republican controlled state legislature of Texas redrew that state’s Congressional districts in an admitted effort to win more Republican seats in Congress in the 2026 Congressional mid-term elections. Democratically controlled state legislatures in other states quickly followed suit. In that earlier case, the Court declared that courts hearing legal challenges to redistricting legislation were required by law to presume the legislature’s “good faith” in enacting redistricting legislation to favor the state’s controlling political party.[1]  

A state legislature’s reallocation of Congressional districts to win more seats in Congress for the political party already in control of the state legislature, is manifestly not in “good faith.” The federal Constitution requires state legislators, like every other public official in the United States, to take an oath, before assuming office, to “support” the United States Constitution. U.S. Constitution, Article VI. Partisan gerrymandering of Congressional districts to win more seats in Congress for the political party already in control of the state legislature does not do that! The overall intent and purpose of the United States Constitution was, and remains, to establish a republican form of government across the United States, where the people’s “representatives” are “apportioned” among the states according to the “Numbers” of “free Persons” found in each state in a census taken once a decade. U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 2. Partisan gerrymandering, and particularly partisan gerrymandering in the middle of a census decade, skews that apportionment. Indeed, that is the unbelievably badfaith purpose of mid-decade redistricting.

Partisan gerrymandering, by itself, does not violate the United States Constitution, but it is not entitled to any presumption of “good faith” “support” for that document either. When a Constitutionally suspect gerrymander is accompanied by credible allegations of a motive that is outrightly illegal, the courts, including the Supreme Court must carefully and professionally consider those allegations in a full and fair trial in order to uphold the rule-of-law. In the recent case of Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court actually ruled that a legislature’s intentional dilution of the naturally occurring and collective voting power of an identified minority racial group would in fact violate the federal Voting Rights Act,[2] despite the Court’s strict construction of that statute. See page 35, heading “V”, Sup.Ct. Slip Opinion of April 29, 2026. That intentional targeting of a minority racial group for a voting disadvantage in an election contest objectively implies racial discrimination sufficient to violate the literal terms of the 15^th Amendment to the United States Constitution, notwithstanding any subjective but suspect claim of “good faith” in seeking an advantage in the number of voters in a new district specially drawn and selected for that very purpose.

/s/ Dan D. Rhea

[1] Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, 146 S.Ct. 418, 419 (2025).

[2] 52 United States Code Section 10301.