Whereas, in Louisiana v. Callais, by a 6–3 decision, the far-right majority of the Supreme Court effectively gutted what remained of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and laid the groundwork for the largest reduction in minority representation since the era following Reconstruction which threatens a half-century’s worth of gains in voting equality, according to Justice Kagan’s dissent;

Whereas the Callais decision is the latest development in a years-long campaign by the Supreme Court to undermine the Voting Rights Act, including its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which in practice precluded the use of the Act’s most important enforcement mechanism, whereby States and localities with an extensive history of racially discriminatory voting practices submitted changes in their election laws and policies or electoral district maps to the Federal Government for advance review before putting them into effect;

Whereas the Callais decision has ushered in a wave of extreme partisan gerrymandering that could swing over a dozen congressional seats, tip the balance of power in the United States House of Representatives, suppress the political power of voters of color nationwide, and create a new Jim Crow reality for Black Americans in the South with respect to the evisceration of Congressional Black representation;

Whereas, immediately following the Callais decision, Louisiana suspended the United States House primary, disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters who had already cast ballots in order to redraw the election maps in a state where one in three residents is Black;

Whereas, in 1965, the American South had not a single Black representative in the United States Congress due to Supreme Court rulings beginning in 1876 that dismantled civil and electoral protections for Blacks in the South, denying their right to the franchise and effectively nullifying the 15th Amendment for nearly a century;

Whereas Congress has a moral imperative to remedy the decadeslong assault on Americans’ civil rights and quickly enact voting rights protections, by removing what former President Barack Obama called the Jim Crow relic of the Senate filibuster, which was used by Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, for 24 hours and 18 minutes to speak in opposition to the Civil Rights Act;

Whereas post-Callais partisan gerrymandering disenfranchises voters of color such as Latino, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities living in multiracial districts across the United States;

Whereas decades of progress in expanding Latino, Black, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander political participation and representation have been made possible through the protections of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the weakening of those protections threatens to reverse hard-fought gains that have enabled those communities to secure fair representation and greater inclusion in the Nation’s civic and political institutions;

Whereas decisions rolling back voting rights, reproductive freedoms, workers’ rights, environmental protections and commonsense gun laws, and dramatically expanding presidential immunity while permitting racial discrimination, have put the Court out of step with the American people while enriching wealthy right-wing political donors and corporate interests;

Whereas the Supreme Court corrupted American elections by greenlighting the unlimited flow of dark money in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and sided with Republicans to allow partisan gerrymandering in Common Cause v. Rucho;

Whereas public confidence in the Supreme Court is at record lows, with half of Americans holding an unfavorable opinion of the Court, as rightwing Justices have accepted lavish vacations and gifts from billionaires and failed to make proper disclosures of these and other financial interests, unbound by an enforceable code of ethics;

Whereas the Court’s far-right supermajority poses a serious threat to any future attempts by Congress to realize the promise of a multiracial democracy, rein in executive power, champion workers’ rights, protect voting rights, and restore and strengthen the Federal protections against racial discrimination in the Voting Rights Act;

Whereas the Court’s rightwing majority has empowered and emboldened President Trump’s attempts to hold on to and expand his power, enabling authoritarian efforts to dismantle Federal agencies, unlawfully fire independent agency heads and civil servants without cause, rescind congressionally appropriated funds, ban transgender servicemembers from the military, and racially profile suspected noncitizens; and

Whereas Congress, as the primary branch of Government and the one most closely reflecting the American people’s democratic will, has a mandate to act boldly to rebuild Americans’ trust in the Supreme Court and democracy: Now, therefore, be it