They used the courts to weaken unions. Now they’re using the courts to weaken voting rights. We fight back by making sure every one of us can still be counted.
In 2018, corporate-backed legal groups engineered Janus v. AFSCME to defund public-sector unions and strip working people of collective power.
Last week, the same Supreme Court took aim at voting rights. In Callais v. Louisiana, a 6-3 Republican-controlled Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, one of the strongest protections communities of color had against maps drawn to silence them. Reporting on the decision describes it as a major weakening of Section 2 and a serious blow to challenges against racially discriminatory redistricting.
In Louisiana, Black voters make up roughly one-third of the population, but under the state’s 2022 congressional map, they could elect their candidate of choice in just one of six districts. A federal court found that map violated the Voting Rights Act. Republicans claimed a fairer map was discrimination — and this Court agreed.
These are not two different fights. They are the same fight, waged by the same people, toward the same end. When working people lose their collective voice at work and at the ballot box, the billionaire class wins.
Republicans came for our unions. Now they’re coming for our votes. Both times, they used the courts. Both times, they dressed it up in constitutional language. And both times, the targets were the same: working people, Black and brown communities, and anyone who might organize, mobilize, and hold power accountable.
The ruling came just days before May Day, International Workers’ Day — a day that has marked the power of collective action for more than a century. The timing should not be lost on us. Solidarity is not just a value; it is how we fight back.
And that fight starts with making sure every one of us can still be counted.