Supreme Court rulings set midterm rules a week from vote

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down at least four rulings this year that changed how congressional maps are drawn, how party money flows and when mail ballots count, one week before Americans vote in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

The most consequential, Louisiana v. Callais, was decided 6-3 on April 29 and prompted four states to redraw their congressional maps. More than 30 million Americans had already voted as of Oct. 27, according to a Fox News live report, so most of those rules are already in play.

In Callais, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, according to the American Constitution Society’s case summary. The ruling narrowed how plaintiffs can win vote-dilution claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Under the new test, the evidence must support “a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts” to disadvantage minority voters, according to a National League of Cities analysis. Partisan motives alone do not meet that standard.

Justice Elena Kagan, in dissent, called the decision the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act,” according to the American Constitution Society summary. Sen. Raphael Warnock called it “a profound defeat for American democracy.”

After the decision, Louisiana and Alabama each eliminated one Black-majority district, Florida redrew its lines in an effort to tilt four House seats toward Republicans, and Tennessee broke up its only Democratic-held district, The Gazette reported on Oct. 27. The court later halted lawsuits seeking to block those changes.

The justices also let new maps in California and Texas stand. California’s is designed to net Democrats five seats and Texas’s is designed to net Republicans five, The Gazette reported. In May the court declined to intervene after the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved map that could have gained Democrats up to four seats. It later declined to overturn a Missouri Supreme Court ruling that forces a referendum on a map that could net Republicans one seat.

On money, the court ruled June 30 in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC that federal limits on coordinated spending between national party committees and their nominees violate the First Amendment, overruling its 2001 decision in Colorado II, according to a Skadden legal analysis. One example of a cap that no longer applies is $65,300 for most House nominees. The ruling did not change coordination rules for super PACs or 501(c)(4) groups. The Gazette described it as an immediate benefit to Republicans, who hold a party-level cash advantage.

A related fight over party advertising is still pending. The court twice left a revised Federal Communications Commission rule in place before the election, giving parties and joint fundraising committees access to candidates’ lower TV ad rates, and left the legal challenge for after the vote, The Gazette reported. We reported earlier on the court’s handling of that dispute.

On mail ballots, the court ruled 5-4 on June 29 in Watson v. Republican National Committee that federal Election Day statutes do not bar a state from counting ballots postmarked by Election Day but received afterward. The case concerned a Mississippi law that accepts such ballots for up to five days. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that “state law dictates when they must be received,” and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, according to the National Constitution Center.

Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch and in part by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, dissented. “Election day is a specified date, not a span of multiple days,” he wrote.

The court was less accommodating of the Trump administration on a separate mail-ballot matter. In September it rejected an emergency request to lift a block on a U.S. Postal Service rule on mail ballots, so the rule will not apply to the midterms, The Gazette reported. It could take effect later if the administration wins on the merits. The court also let New Hampshire bar student IDs at the polls on Oct. 24.

The next election case is already on the calendar. RNC v. Mi Familia Vota, which concerns Arizona voter registration forms, will be argued in December, with a ruling expected by the end of June 2027, The Gazette reported.

Via The Gazette.

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