Awaiting the Supreme Court Decision That Could ‘Completely Erase’ the ‘Civil Right Movement’s Crowning Achievement’

Feb 19, 2026

A set of Supreme Court decision days, beginning Friday, could feature a body blow to the United States’ multiracial democracy.

Louisiana v. Callais “could completely erase all, or most, of the gains of the civil rights movement’s crowning achievement,” Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center, told reporters Thursday.

The Court could use the case to shred what remains of the Voting Rights Act, hobbling the section of the law under which voting rights groups challenge district maps that dilute minority voters. Prior to the Act’s passage, Black voting power and political representation, particularly in the South, was all but nonexistent. The right has worked for years to return to that place, and, after more than a decade of chipping away at voter protections, the Court seemed poised during October oral arguments to finish the job.

All three branches of government are currently working in tandem to unravel voting protections and impose new restrictions, just months before a midterm cycle Republicans fear will go poorly for them. In addition to the Court likely killing what remains of the Voting Rights Act, congressional Republicans have coalesced behind the SAVE Act to add onerous proof of citizenship and photo identification requirements nationwide. Only the Senate filibuster stands in the way of its passage.

If the SAVE Act gets to President Trump, Weiser said, it would be “the first time the U.S. Congress passed a voter suppression law.”

The House is also set to vote on the Make Elections Great Again Act, which is even more pernicious and would ban universal mail-in voting, counting ballots after Election Day and ranked-choice voting.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to impose voter restrictions via executive action (unsuccessfully, so far), has been the primary engine behind pushing red states to redistrict and raided the Fulton County, Georgia election office. Allies have urged Trump to deploy ICE or the military to polling places, a scheme transparently aimed at intimidating Democratic voters into staying home.

Fair Fight’s Lauren Groh-Wargo cited an old episode of Steve Bannon’s podcast Thursday, where he and a guest ticked off the three ways Republicans had to manipulate elections to guarantee one-party rule in the United States: execute mid-decade redistricting, gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and tinker with the census.

When Louisiana v. Callais comes down, as soon as Friday, Bannon and co. may have come closer to realizing their vision.

— Kate Riga

It Could Also Be the Tariffs Ruling

Court-watchers have cycled through breathless anxiety to anticlimactic comedown since late last year, waiting for a major Court decision on the legality of Trump’s indiscriminate spray of tariffs. The tariffs stretch the limits of executive power, have serious economic ramifications and, potentially, array the right-wing Court majority in opposition to a president it is much more comfortable supporting.

— Kate Riga

Alito Eying the Exits?

It’s become conventional wisdom that Justice Samuel Alito will step down at the end of this Court term for a reason: Republicans fear that they’ll lose control of the Senate. If they do, the 75-year-old Alito might have to hang on until at least 2028 for another right-wing judge to get confirmed in his place — even longer if Democrats win either the White House or the Senate.

Add to that another fairly obvious signal: Alito has a book coming out in October (a favored gambit of older political figures to get out ahead of the legacy-defining), and that his wife Martha-Ann has been musing in public over him getting “free of this nonsense” since at least 2024.

The only possible motivation for Alito to stay is the megalomania that drives members of Congress to cling to their seats until they die. But he knows better than anyone that his vision of America is only possible if the Court stays in the grip of the right, and that requires clearing the way for a young justice crafted in his image.

— Kate Riga

…And Is Thomas?

The calculus that applies to Alito applies equally to his 77-year-old brother-in-ideology. Thomas isn’t writing a book, as far as I know, leaving us without one of Alito’s major tells. But if Thomas doesn’t also depart this summer, he’ll be taking quite an actuarial gamble.

— Kate Riga