The Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais to curb the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has sent shockwaves across American politics. Loosed from the obligation to group together minority voters in dedicated districts, and with partisan gerrymandering now condoned by the Supreme Court, state legislatures are hurriedly redrawing districts to benefit their controlling parties. Some states have rapidly pushed ahead redistrictings to maximize the political power of their parties, but others have faced obstacles, often posed by their own state constitutions. The biggest setback so far was faced by Virginia Democrats on May 8, when the state supreme court voided a referendum that would have permitted partisan gerrymandering. One particularly aggressive response proposed by Democrats would drop the mandatory retirement age of Virginia Supreme Court justices to 54, thereby purging the bench and allowing the referendum gerrymander to proceed.
Whatever its excesses in some instances, partisan gerrymandering is a normal part of American politics. But what is at stake in the current moment of zero-sum partisanship is a larger shift in the stakes of American democracy. The focus of leaders is shifting away from maintaining popular support through effective governance and towards the pursuit of victory through technical political machination. In other words, the formal game of obtaining power is increasingly the only one left.