House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Democrats need to pursue judicial reform after the Supreme Court handed Republicans a victory by repealing a section of the Voting Rights Act permitting redistricting by race.
Jeffries criticized the decision, saying on MS Now Saturday, it threw the “American South back into the Jim Crow era” and encouraged reform as a response.
“We are going to have to explore massive judicial reform, state by state and at the federal level,” Jeffries said. “And everything should be on the table as far as I’m concerned.”
The Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 ruling in the Louisiana v. Callais case, weakening Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by striking down a congressional map that created two majority-black districts in Louisiana.
The decision is the latest redistricting showdown, in which Republicans and Democrats have been racing to redraw congressional maps across the country ahead of the midterm elections that could change the party’s majority in Congress, as Democrats are expected to retake control of the House.
Jeffries warned it’s going to take an “all-hands-on-deck effort” to solve the “structural problems.”
“Now, we’re going to need nationwide judicial reform. We’re going to need nationwide electoral reform,” Jeffries said. “We’re going to need nationwide campaign finance reform, which is why we have to take the House back, take the Senate back, keep pressing forward, and then, in 2028, take the presidency back as well.”
In addition to judicial reform, Jeffries shared his plans to address the “structural problems,” including passage of the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and ending the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, a Supreme Court decision striking down a ban on limiting corporations and other groups from spending independent expenditures in political campaigns.
The Callais decision renewed Democrats’ support of the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which remains stalled in the Senate.
The bill, named after the late civil rights leaders, would strengthen the original Voting Rights Act by updating the framework.
“We’ve got to, for instance, make sure we pass the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act so we can end the era of voter suppression in the United States of America once and for all,” Jeffries said of the bill.
VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS ASK SUPREME COURT TO REINSTATE NULLIFIED REDISTRICTING AMENDMENT
Jeffries, who continues to push back on the decision, restated his commitment to electing Democrats in the nearing elections.
“We all have to come together to actually push back against this unprecedented attack on our democracy, unprecedented attack on free and fair elections, and unprecedented attack on Black representation in the American South and all across the country, which is what the Supreme Court’s decision in Callais has unleashed,” he said.