Senator Schmitt: “Racial Gerrymandering is Illegal, DOJ Must Enforce the Law”

Schmitt Chairs Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on Enforcing SCOTUS' Callais Decision Across the U.S.

U.S. SENATE - U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) today chaired a Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing on the enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais to end the practice of racial gerrymandering under the guise of compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

Watch Schmitt's full opening remarks HERE.

"California and Illinois are not side issues. They are test cases. California shows how race can be smuggled into a partisan gerrymander under the label of VRA compliance. Illinois shows how race-first redistricting can be embedded directly into state law. Both should be reviewed immediately. Those maps do not become constitutional because they are already in use. They do not survive because politicians call them voting-rights maps. And they will not disappear on their own. The Department of Justice has an obligation to act. The Civil Rights Division should not sit back while racially gerrymandered maps remain in force for another election.

"I am calling on Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to move immediately: review maps drawn or defended under the old regime, identify districts built on unconstitutional racial sorting, intervene where appropriate, file statements of interest where appropriate, and support plaintiffs enforcing Callais in court.

"Private plaintiffs have a role too. Bring the cases now. Challenge the illegal maps now. Ask the courts to act now.

"We are heading into an election cycle. Every election held under an unconstitutional map compounds the injury. Every illegal district that remains in place distorts the House of Representatives and denies Americans districts drawn under the Constitution rather than racial arithmetic.

"The Left will say this 'guts' the Voting Rights Act. It does not. It saves the Voting Rights Act from becoming what the Constitution forbids: a command to discriminate. The Voting Rights Act protects citizens from racial discrimination. It does not authorize the government to commit racial discrimination in their name. That is the lesson of Callais. And that is why this hearing matters.

"Racial gerrymandering is illegal. Illegal maps are still in effect. DOJ must enforce the law. Plaintiffs must enforce the law. And Congress must make clear that no State, no court, and no activist group gets to divide Americans by race and call it democracy," said Senator Schmitt.

Senator Schmitt questioned Edward Greim, the lawyer who successfully argued Louisiana v. Callais before the Supreme Court, about whether Democrats' accusations that the decision "guts" the VRA were true. Greim responded: "Absolutely not."

Schmitt also asked Will Chamberlain, Senior Counsel for the Article III Project, about how Callais impacts the legality of states intentionally using race to draw districts. Watch Schmitt's line of questioning HERE.

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