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There is no clearer case for the necessity of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 than what happened the moment SCOTUS eroded it.
Charles Douglas, Executive Director of Common Power, joined me for our weekly conversation to break down exactly that. Within hours of the ruling, southern states moved to eliminate Black-majority districts with a speed that demolished every argument the conservative majority used to justify gutting the law in the first place. SCOTUS’s reasoning was immediately disproven by reality.
We covered the immediate actions in Tennessee, Florida, Louisiana, and Alabama. We got into Charles’s argument that this Supreme Court starts with the partisan result it wants and works backward into whatever reasoning gets it there. We talked about Justin Pearson, who was on the Tennessee statehouse floor fighting this in real time, and what Common Power is doing to back him. We got into the Virginia Supreme Court striking down maps that voters passed through a referendum on a constitutional amendment, the Indiana primaries where Trump cleared out lawmakers who resisted gerrymandering, and what the pro-democracy coalition has to do now to play the long game on the judiciary.
We also spent the last part of the episode on the importance of independent media, who is doing the real work, how it needs to be funded, and why I am hereby canceled after I went to bat for some of the reporting coming out of The New York Times and CNN. The pod then shifted into what can only be called an Ahmed roast session where Charles and the live chat went at everything from my love of Drake’s music to my Lacoste polo color to my taste in publications. Look, if we need an “Ahmed roast hour” segment every Friday, I’ll happily oblige lol. We have to laugh through the dystopia somehow. It was a good time, hope you stick around until the end of the episode.
This was a wide-ranging, important conversation. If you were watching live, thank you for being part of it. If you’re catching up now, the full conversation is above, and the key takeaways are below.
The South Moves Fast To Erode Black Representation
The speed of what happened after the SCOTUS ruling is itself the argument for voting rights legislation. Southern states did not need time to think. They had been waiting.
Tennessee eliminated its last Democratic, Black-majority district. The state legislature moved immediately, redrawing maps that split majority-Black Shelby County, home of Memphis, into three separate districts. As Charles put it, Tennessee is 40% African American and now has no district to represent those voters at all. Memphis is a massive economic engine for the state, driven heavily by its Black community, and those voters now have nothing to show for it. The map, Charles said, is ridiculous to look at.
DeSantis signed off on new Florida maps within hours of the ruling. The maps create four additional Republican districts and include the elimination of a heavily Black district in the state. Charles and I both noted that DeSantis had these maps preloaded and waiting. He knew what the ruling was going to say before it came down. That is not a court acting independently. That is coordination.
Louisiana suspended its own primary election. The governor issued an executive order halting its primaries to allow for the redrawing of maps that would eliminate the newly drawn Black-majority district, the very district that was at the center of the case SCOTUS ruled on. Alabama called a special session to redraw its own maps as well.
Alito and Roberts argued the country had evolved past the need for these protections. I laid out both quotes directly. Alito claimed that “Vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination.” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in Shelby v. Holder that “Our country has changed,” and “Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” Within hours, southern states proved both of them wrong.
SCOTUS Started With The Result In Mind
Charles made an argument that I think cuts to the heart of what this court actually is. It is not reasoning toward a conclusion. It is starting from a conclusion and manufacturing the reasoning to get there.
The conservative justices contradict themselves term over term because consistency was never the point. Charles made the point that if you look across their decisions since the conservative majority took full control, the rulings actively contradict each other. That does not bother them because the goal is not legal coherence. The goal, as Charles put it plainly, is Democrats bad, Republicans good. Every ruling flows from that result.
The intent standard Alito imposed is designed to be impossible to meet. I made this point directly in the conversation: to prove intent, you would need a text message, a Signal chat, some explicit admission. Nobody is doing that anymore. The intent is in the outcome. That is exactly why Congress passed an amendment to the Voting Rights Act in 1982 that explicitly said racist outcomes, not just racist intent, could be held to account. This court gutted that amendment to make these maps bulletproof.
DeSantis having maps preloaded exposes the coordination. Charles noted it and I agreed: the Supreme Court saying it is not partisan while simultaneously indicating the ruling was coming so Florida could have maps ready to sign the same day is not the behavior of an independent judiciary. It is inside baseball, and not even subtle inside baseball.
Justin Pearson And The Fight on the Ground
While the Tennessee legislature was voting to erase Memphis’s representation, State Rep. Justin Pearson (D) was in the building fighting it. Charles and I both wanted to make sure this episode gave him his flowers.
Pearson got in a state trooper’s face when troopers tried to arrest his brother. Charles described the video in detail: Pearson, a young guy with a giant afro, standing his ground against a large trooper, getting in close, cursing at him, and calling him “boy.” As Charles explained, the historical weight of a Black man in the South, turning that word back on a white authority figure in that moment, is not something that can be overstated. The trooper, Charles said, backed down. I noted it was one of the most cathartic things I had watched in a long time.
Common Power has been backing Pearson since early this year. Charles said they met him in Tennessee in January, interviewed him, and identified him as a breakthrough leader because he is challenging a Democratic incumbent in a seat that needs a fighter right now. They had two Seattle fundraisers and an office meet-and-greet planned for him next week. Those plans are now in flux because the district he was running for no longer exists. Memphis has been carved into three pieces, and Pearson has to decide which one he runs in.
Pearson is exactly who you want fighting alongside you. Charles’s framing was direct: if you are looking for someone who will go to the mat for you, look no further. He was on the floor leading protesters, giving speeches outside, and physically intervening when troopers got aggressive. As Charles put it, if you are buying stocks right now, buy stock in Justin Pearson.
The Gerrymandering Wars Shifted Overnight
Going into this week, Democrats had momentum in the redistricting battle. That changed fast.
Indiana primaries showed Trump will primary anyone who blocks gerrymandering in a red state. State lawmakers who had resisted Trump’s redistricting push were targeted by Trump-backed challengers in Tuesday’s primaries and lost. Charles made the point that this sends a clear message to every Republican state lawmaker still on the fence: resistance has a price. One Indiana lawmaker dropped out of the race, got called to Washington to meet with Trump personally, got back in, and won. In a red state, that 30% of America that still backs Trump no matter what is enough to end your career.
The Virginia Supreme Court struck down maps that voters passed through a constitutional amendment. I made the point that I cannot imagine a more robust democratic process than a constitutional amendment passed by referendum. Red states can have a single governor unilaterally suspend primaries, and GOP legislators can draw maps without voter consent. But blue states go through the most rigorous process available, and the court throws it out anyway. Charles noted this is the first time something like this has happened since 1953. It is literally unprecedented. And as he said, it is cold water for Democrats, because Virginia is not a blue state in the way California or Washington is, and it does not have a court that will protect the process.
Blue states with full trifectas need to move now, not for 2026 but for 2028. Charles was direct: the states where redistricting can actually be protected are the deep blue states that have the legislature, the governorship, and a court that will hold. California has already moved and has not been struck down. Those states need to get going immediately. The window for 2026 is largely closed. 2028 is the target.
The Judiciary Is The Long Game
This was the most forward-looking section of the conversation and the one I want people to sit with the longest.
Common Power has reprioritized state Supreme Court races in a major way. Charles said their focus has shifted substantially toward state supreme courts in a way it has not been before. They were just in Wisconsin for that state Supreme Court race. Wisconsin was once one of the bluest states in the country, gave us Earth Day, had outright socialist mayors in its major cities, and Republicans dismantled it by targeting the courts first. That is the playbook, and it worked. (Full disclosure: I built Common Power’s volunteer organizing app, which you can find on their website at commonpower.org. I want to be transparent about that partnership.)
Washington State has five Supreme Court seats up this fall, and Republicans are coming hard. Charles flagged this as a live threat right now. Five seats in one of the bluest states in the country, and Republicans are running organized campaigns to flip them, while Democratic voters may not even know these races are happening. Common Power is working on partnerships to mobilize there.
What we are living through now is the result of decades of planning that the pro-democracy coalition ignored. I made this point directly: Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society. Decades of methodical work to re-engineer the judiciary from the bottom up. Meanwhile, people on the pro-democracy side did not take the courts seriously enough, did not take the 2016 warnings seriously enough, and here we are without Roe, without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and watching a Virginia constitutional amendment get tossed in the trash. The lesson is not complicated. You have to think in decades, not election cycles.
Building The Independent Media Ecosystem
The conversation closed on something I think about constantly: the infrastructure question for independent media and where the money needs to go.
The pro-democracy coalition no longer cedes the influencer and independent media ground to Trump. Charles made this point, and I think it is real. In 2024, the traditional playbook, commercials, big stage moments, and celebrity appearances did not work. What is working now is people meeting voters where they live, on their phones. The decentralization of media away from corporate gatekeepers has actually created a more nimble, more honest information ecosystem. Stories that major outlets won’t touch are coming out of TikTok and Substack from citizen journalists and independent reporters.
The independent media ecosystem is deeper now than it was in Trump’s first term. We also named some of the people doing real work. These are creators with different lanes, different audiences, all part of a real ecosystem that did not exist when my team and I were running Rantt Media in Trump’s first term.
The money problem has to be solved, and it has to be solved differently than it has been. Kamala Harris raised a billion dollars. It evaporated after the election. I made the argument that if even a fraction of what gets donated to campaigns was redirected toward independent media and organizing infrastructure on an off-year basis, we could build an entire ecosystem of media outlets that rival Fox News. We noted that liberal billionaires are starting to move, but so far selectively, toward the most famous names. The people doing the real daily work are not seeing it. That has to change, and it starts with individual subscribers and donors making choices about where their money goes.
Bottom Line
Southern states moved to erase Black representation before the ruling was even fully digested. That is the answer to every argument that Section 2 was no longer necessary. SCOTUS’s reasoning was disproven in real time.
The fight now is long, and it runs through state courts, state legislatures, and the independent media infrastructure being built to hold the line on truth and organizing. Charles and Common Power are in the field doing that work right now. Justin Pearson is in the Tennessee statehouse doing it. We are here doing it every week.
If this conversation mattered to you, I hope you consider becoming a paid subscriber to Ahmed Baba News. If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you! Independent pro-democracy journalism only works if people back it. And if you’d like to get involved and knock doors this election year, I also highly recommend checking out Common Power.
