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Notes -
In one of the more anticipated decisions of this term, the Supreme Court (6-3 on ideological lines) has struck down the second Louisiana majority-black district. They did not rule categorically that race may not be used as a factor in redistricting decisions, but they did rule that if a redistricting decision could be explained by a partisan gerrymander rather than a racial one, there was no case.
In practice, if taken seriously by lower courts, this pretty much destroys nearly all Section 2 Voting Rights Act cases, because of the strong affiliation between blacks and the Democratic Party.
The entire idea of section 2 applied this way has always been rather silly, it takes the collectivist view around race that people are better represented as a class based off their skin color rather than their ability to choose based off their own individual beliefs and preferences. There's a lot to complain about with voting, partisan gerrymandering is still messed up both federally and state election wise, the structure of the Senate explicitly having a bunch of low population states over less high population ones, and the electoral college works in a similar way.
But those are problems by changing the very value of a person's representation, by making someone in California have like 10x less say than the same person in Mississippi in Congress and the presidency. It's not an issue because they fail to make the assumption that black people need some explicit maps drawn out for them "as a class".
The Senate does not represent people, it represents States. You may think that States do not deserve representation at all, but that's a different argument. California and Mississippi are equally represented in the Senate, as intended. The people of California and Mississippi are more-or-less equally represented in the House, mostly as intended except we need 3-10x as many seats as we do now. At least they're equally treated in their gargantuan districts.
Yeah it's a rather silly system that hasn't scaled well. States are collectives of people but they aren't people, the people in states should be represented fairly and the current Senate system doesn't do that. It explicitly gives smaller less populated areas far more influence.
Far more influence over the country as a whole != far more influence in actual fact, especially on the local level.
The large city/states have more than enough ways to throw their weight around, including the mere fact they're city/states. They don't need the ability to pass the "Loot the Rest of the Country Forever Because Fuck You Act".
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