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A Supreme Court ruling on voting rights could boost Republicans’ redistricting efforts
Demonstrators holding signs in support of minority voting rights gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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Claire Harbage/NPR
A major redistricting case returning to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday could not only determine the fate of the federal Voting Rights Act, but also unlock a path for Republicans to pick up a slew of additional congressional seats.
If the high court overturns the act’s Section 2 — a provision that bans racial discrimination in voting — GOP-controlled states could redraw at least 19 more voting districts for the House of Representatives in favor of Republicans, according to a recent report by the voting rights advocacy groups Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action.
And depending on when the court rules in the case, known as Louisiana v. Callais, some number of the seats could be redistricted prior to next year’s midterm election.
The analysis comes as President Trump continues to lead a GOP push for new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and other states that could help Republicans preserve their slim House majority after the 2026 election.
The GOP effort could be bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling that eliminates longstanding Section 2 protections against the dilution of the collective power of racial minority voters.
Many of the landmark law’s supporters fear such an outcome after the conservative-majority court didn’t rule last term on the Louisiana case, and instead scheduled a rare second round of oral arguments, which is expected to focus on the constitutionality of Section 2’s redistricting requirements.
A ruling gutting Section 2 could have a cascading effect on congressional maps in mostly Southern states where Republicans either control both legislative chambers and the governor’s office or have a veto-proof majority in the legislature — and where voting is racially polarized, with Black voters tending to vote Democratic and white voters tending to vote Republican.
If mapmakers in those states are no longer required under Section 2 to draw districts where racial minority voters have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidate, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina and Texas could end up with fewer Democratic representatives in Congress. Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee could lose all of theirs, the report finds.
As much as 30% of the Congressional Black Caucus and 11% of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could also be lost.
It all leads to a possibility of Republicans cementing one-party control of the House for at least a generation, says Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter Fund.
Demonstrators hold signs and wear shirts for Black Voters Matter Fund outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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Claire Harbage/NPR
“Part of the point that we’re trying to make with this report is that what happens in the South doesn’t just stay in the South,” Albright adds. “This racial gerrymandering has the ability to not just disempower, disenfranchise Black voters and to eliminate Black elected officials and Latino elected officials. What happens in these states impacts the entire country.”
How the Supreme Court overturning Section 2 could lead to a redistricting “free-for-all”
In the Louisiana case, a lower court ordered the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to draw a new congressional map after a group of Black voters sued under Section 2.
Section 2 “ensures all communities of color can still participate equally in the voting process and elect candidates who reflect their interests,” says Alanah Odoms, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, whose attorneys are helping to represent those Black voters. “And if communities of color are not able to do that, we stand to lose what I think most of us believe is so fundamental to our democracy, which is equal participation, equal opportunity.”
The court-ordered map, which was in effect for the 2024 election, led to Democrats picking up a second seat in Louisiana.
A group of self-described “non-African American” voters, led by Phillip Callais, has argued, however, that the race-based redistricting the court ordered to get in line with Section 2 is unconstitutional. Just as the Supreme Court ruled against race-based affirmative action at colleges and universities in 2023, they argue, the court should put an end to race-based political mapmaking under Section 2.
In seeking a rehearing in the Louisiana case, the Supreme Court asked all sides in the case to consider whether the state’s “intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”
In one of their latest briefs to the high court, Republican state officials in Louisiana now argue against using race “in any form” when redistricting.
And in a major shift from past administrations, the Justice Department under Trump agrees that Section 2’s protections against racial discrimination are no longer constitutional.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court rejected a similar argument by Alabama Republicans.
“The court could reaffirm the Voting Rights Act as it did in 2023 in Allen v. Milligan,” says Atiba Ellis, a professor and an associate dean at Case Western Reserve University’s law school. “But many observers — and I am one of them — have been concerned about the court becoming more and more cynical about race-conscious remedies to address longstanding civil rights wrongs. And this decision has the potential to be the tipping point where the court declares unconstitutional or heavily restricts the ability for Congress to create remedies that promote multiracial democracy.”
That kind of decision coming amid the ongoing mid-decade congressional redistricting war between Republicans and Democrats, Ellis adds, could set the stage for a true “free-for-all” — pointing also to the court’s 2019 ruling that partisan gerrymandering is not reviewable by federal courts.
“It is one thing for politicians on both sides of the aisle to use the power that they have to engage in unprecedented power grabs. But the most important check on those grabs has been the prevention of racial discrimination,” Ellis says about Section 2. “Absent the federal law that would prevent that discrimination, I think the consequences could be tremendous and could be felt for decades.”
The window of time to pass new congressional maps before the midterms is closing as state deadlines draw nearer. Louisiana’s top election official, Secretary of State Nancy Landry, has asked the Supreme Court to rule in this case by early January 2026 to avoid disrupting the state’s current schedule.
But the timing remains unclear for the Supreme Court, which usually releases decisions for major cases toward the end of its term in June.
The court has confirmed that it plans to discuss early next month if it will take up a North Dakota case about whether private individuals and groups — whose lawsuits have been the main way of enforcing Section 2 — can continue to sue. Republican state officials in Mississippi have also raised that issue in another redistricting case on direct appeal to the high court.
Edited by Benjamin Swasey
BALTIMORE — The Justice Department on Tuesday announced 18 charges against the operators of the 100,000-plus-ton cargo ship that crashed into a Maryland bridge more than two years ago, causing it to collapse and killing six people.
Federal prosecutors said they were charging the international companies Synergy Marine Pte Ltd and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd, as well as ship technical superintendent Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair. The charges included conspiracy and misconduct or neglect of ship officers that resulted in death and obstruction.
The two companies and technical superintendent were also charged with conspiracy, willfully failing to immediately inform the U.S. Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and false statements, according to a statement announcing the charges.
The companies were also accused of misdemeanor violations of the Clean Water Act, Oil Pollution Act and Refuse Act, the department said. Those charges are related to the discharge of pollutants into Maryland’s Patapsco River, including the shipping containers, their contents, oil and the bridge itself.
The 900-foot ship Dali lost power twice and slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early hours of March 26, 2024, as a work crew was fixing potholes.
Six construction workers died when the bridge went crumbling down into the Patapsco River. Another construction worker fell into the waters below and sustained serious injuries but survived, while an inspector working as a subcontractor for the Maryland Transportation Authority escaped the collapse without injuries. The nearly two dozen crew members on the ship survived, along with two pilots who were helping the vessel navigate the harbor.
The construction workers were Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, Carlos Daniel Hernandez Estrella, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, Jose Mynor Lopez, Miguel Angel Luna, Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval and survivor Julio Cervantes Suarez.
Cervantes Suarez told NBC News in July 2024 that the men who died, who were all Latino, included his nephew, brother-in-law and friends he had known for years.
“Alejandro, Miguel, Dorlian, Maynor, Carlos and Jose were making our roads safer when they lost their lives on that fateful day in March 2024,” said Jimmy Paul, a special agent in charge with the FBI’s Baltimore field office. “The collapse should never have happened.”
The collapse brought the critically important Baltimore port to a standstill for two months and reconstruction of the bridge is ongoing.
“The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a preventable tragedy of enormous consequence,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement announcing the charges. “This indictment is a critical step toward holding accountable those whose reckless disregard for maritime safety regulations caused this disaster. Six construction workers lost their lives, critical infrastructure was destroyed, pollutants were released into the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay, and the economic damage now exceeds five billion dollars.”
“This Department is committed to securing justice for the victims and ensuring those responsible are held to account,” he said.
The company Synergy Marine Pte Ltd is based in Singapore and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd is based in Chennai, India, according to prosecutors. Nair, 47, is an Indian national who was a technical superintendent of both companies.
Prosecutors said they believe the ship’s technical superintendent is in India and that they would use all available law enforcement tools to bring him to the U.S. to face charges.
A National Transportation Safety Board report determined that the 947-foot-long Singapore-flagged cargo ship was transiting out of Baltimore harbor when it lost power and propulsion before striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes said at the news conference Tuesday that the defendants allegedly altered the ship in a way that meant it could not regain power after the second blackout in order to avoid crashing into the bridge in time.
Cervantes Suarez said he hopes people remember those who died.
“I knew all of them, they were families. They were good people, good workers and had good values,” he said.
Gary Grumbach, Tom Costello and Owen Hayes reported from Baltimore. Daniella Silva reported from New York City.
The maker of Canvas, the software used by thousands of schools and universities around the world, said on Monday that it had reached a deal with the hackers that recently breached its systems for the return of stolen data and the destruction of any copies.
ShinyHunters, a hacking group, had claimed responsibility for the attack on Instructure, the Salt Lake City-based company that provides Canvas to about half of all colleges and universities in North America.
The hackers said they had accessed the data of more than 275 million users at nearly 9,000 schools worldwide, including private conversations between students and teachers as well as personal identifying information such as names and email addresses. Canvas was shut down for hours after the cyberattack on Thursday.
The agreement, Instructure said in a statement, involved the return of the stolen data and confirmation that the data had been destroyed at the hackers’ end. Instructure added that it had been informed that none of its customers would face extortion as a result of the theft.
“While there is never complete certainty when dealing with cybercriminals, we believe it was important to take every step within our control to give customers additional peace of mind, to the extent possible,” the company said.
Instructure did not say what it had given the hackers in exchange for the return of the data. The company did not immediately respond to questions about the deal.
Canvas has more than 30 million active users around the world, according to Instructure. The platform is used by teachers and students for coursework management and communications. Instructure said the data compromised in the hack included usernames, email addresses, course names, enrollment information and messages.
ShinyHunters on Thursday claimed the attack in a message that appeared on students’ Canvas pages and was obtained by The New York Times. The group warned that it would leak an unspecified amount of data on May 12 if it did not receive a response from Instructure. In its May 3 ransom note, the group had threatened to leak “several billions of private messages among students and teachers.”
Not much is known about ShinyHunters, which is believed to have been formed around 2020. Its goal appears to be to obtain personal records and sell them. One of its high-profile attacks was against Ticketmaster in 2024, when the hackers said they had stolen the user information of more than 500 million customers.
Instructure said it first detected unauthorized activity in Canvas on Apr. 29, and again on May 7. The company said it took Canvas offline to investigate the breach, and also informed the F.B.I., the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other international law enforcement partners.
Instructure did not immediately respond to questions about whether any law enforcement agencies were involved in its dealings with the hackers. The F.B.I. advises against paying ransom to hackers, saying it does not guarantee data security and encourages attackers to target more victims.
The National Quarantine Center is located at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Nebraska Medicine
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Nebraska Medicine
Sixteen of the 18 passengers transferred to the U.S. from a cruise ship where there was an outbreak of hantavirus arrived in Omaha, Neb., on Monday for evaluation after disembarking the vessel in Spain’s Canary Islands over the weekend.
Of the 15 U.S. citizens and one dual U.S.-British citizen who arrived in Nebraska, all but one are currently being housed in the National Quarantine Unit. That patient tested positive for the virus and was being housed in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, officials said at a Monday news conference. The 15 people in the quarantine unit will continue to be monitored for signs of the illness.
Passengers carry their belongings in plastic bags after being evacuated from the MV Hondius after docking in the Granadilla Port on Sunday in Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, Spain.
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Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Nebraska may seem an unlikely location to process these individuals, but it is home to the National Quarantine Unit — the only federally funded quarantine unit in the U.S. — and the separate Nebraska Biocontainment Unit. They are highly specialized facilities located at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and widely considered among the best in the world.
The $1 million, five-room biocontainment unit was dedicated in 2005. It was a joint project with Nebraska Health and Human Services and the UNMC. It is set up to safely provide medical care for patients with highly hazardous and infectious diseases and was used in 2014 to treat two doctors infected with Ebola. The National Quarantine Unit was completed in late 2019. It cost nearly $20 million, according to the Associated Press. Both facilities were used during the COVID-19 epidemic.
“We are prepared for situations exactly like this,” Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement. “Our teams have trained for decades alongside federal and state partners to make sure we can safely provide care while protecting our staff and the broader community. We are proud to support this national effort.”
Two additional U.S. passengers on the cruise ship — a couple, with one showing symptoms of hantavirus — were transferred for monitoring to Emory University Hospital, where another advanced biocontainment facility is located.
When the biocontainment unit was first dedicated more than 20 years ago, the biggest concerns were anthrax attacks and severe acute respiratory syndrome, more commonly known as SARS, Dr. Phil Smith, who spearheaded the efforts at Nebraska Medical Center to create the biocontainment unit, told the AP in 2020. Smith died last year.
A hallway leading to rooms at the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
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Nebraska Medicine
The quarantine unit features 20 negative-pressure rooms designed to keep potentially harmful particles from escaping by maintaining lower air pressure inside than outside the rooms. The single-occupancy rooms provide patients with attached bathrooms, exercise equipment and Wi-Fi, according to the medical center.
“We have protocols in the quarantine unit that provide for safe care of these of these persons, including just all the activities of daily living so that they can … have a comfortable stay but also have it in an area that’s protected and limits spread of the pathogen,” Dr. Michael Wadman, the medical director of the National Quarantine Unit, said at a Friday news conference.
The biocontainment unit, by contrast, is a patient-care space where people are able to receive medical treatment, Dr. Angela Hewlett, medical director of the biocontainment unit, told reporters Monday.
She emphasized that the facility — which has a 10-bed capacity — operates independently from the quarantine unit and has its own dedicated air-handling system. “We don’t share [it] with any of the rest of the facility,” she said, noting that the unit uses rooftop HEPA filtration and is designed “very differently” from what most people typically imagine in a hospital setting.
One of the rooms in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit.
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Nebraska Medicine
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, speaking at Monday’s news conference, welcomed the recently arrived patients, who are among nearly 150 people from 23 different countries who were aboard the MV Hondius when the illness most commonly transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents broke out. As of Monday, the World Health Organization has reported at least nine cases of hantavirus, including three deaths.
“We’re glad that you’re here,” Pillen said. “We’re going to ensure that you have the best world-class care possible.”
Pillen also sought to reassure Nebraskans that the facilities are safe and secure: “We’re working diligently to ensure no one leaves the security in an unsecured way at an inappropriate time,” he said. “No one poses a risk to public health, just walking out the front door of the streets of Omaha.”
The hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship has been identified as the Andes strain of the illness, one that can be spread, though rarely, from person-to-person, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can cause severe respiratory disease, with early flu-like symptoms.
“The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged, close contact with someone who is already symptomatic,” according to Adm. Brian Christine, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who spoke at Monday’s news conference. “Even so, we have taken this situation very seriously from the very start.”
“The risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low,” he said.
The full quarantine period for hantavirus is 42 days, Christine said, but he added that the patients would be allowed to go home if they remained asymptomatic.
“Right now, the passengers that are all in the assessment phase — they’re going to be here for at least a few days while we do assessments and the coordination on what happens next,” he said, adding that they had the option to remain in the quarantine facility for the full period, for “the safest and most effective option for them.”
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