Thread by @mcpli

Section 2 as it applies to redistricting survives Brnowich, but Section 2 in the redistricting context was already getting harder to use.

That’s both because SCOTUS interpreted it restrictively and because Section 2 claims, with those restrictions, are hard to successfully bring in the places where people of color increasingly live (namely, the suburbs). 2/

To win a Section 2 redistricting case, the Supreme Court requires that you prove that you can draw a reasonably compact minority district that is 50%+1 citizen voting age population. That’s possible in the traditional big city cores where people of color used to mostly live. 3/

But it is harder to draw such a district in diverse, multiracial suburbs - which may still be segregated but aren’t, in general, segregated into district-sized units. 4/

And you can’t be too aggressive about finding minority voters to include in a district because otherwise you run into the Supreme Court’s racial gerrymandering decisions which say that you can’t draw a district “predominantly” on the basis of race. 5/

All of which is to say that Brnowich doesn’t impact redistricting directly but the Supreme Court already has made it harder to use Section 2 in the redistricting context.

And Brnowich also makes clear that we should not expect much help SCOTUS in making it easier to use. 6/