Former vice president Kamala Harris has blasted the Supreme Court’s decision to allow states to dismantle Black-majority congressional districts, saying the move allowed Republicans to “cheat” ahead of midterm elections.
“What they have done with this decision, by saying that the politics of redistricting is OK, is they are back-dooring racism through politics,” Harris said on a call with nonprofit organization Emerge on Wednesday.
“What they are doing is intentionally… trying to suppress the voice of the people,” she said.
Harris’ remarks follow a decision from the nation’s high court that delivered a massive blow to the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the case of Louisiana v Callais, stating that voters hindered or prohibited from voting due to reasons concerning race must prove they were the victims of “intentional discrimination.”
Speaking to Emerge, Harris raised the idea of Supreme Court reform “including the notion of expanding the court.” Democrats have floated the idea following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, which led to Donald Trump appointing a third nominee to the bench, which has a conservative majority.
“Let’s invite a discussion about how do we push for statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C.; how are we thinking about the Electoral College,” she said.
“We’ve got to neutralize this red-state cheating,” she said. “There’s a brutality at play on the other side and a ruthlessness. And we need to play to win.”
In response to the Callais ruling, Republican states in the South — all of which have at least one majority-Black district — quickly scrambled to reset the maps in the GOP’s favor before midterms.
The Republican-dominated government in Tennessee eliminated the state’s only Black-majority district in central Memphis, splitting the Democratic-leaning district into three separate districts — diluting Black voters’ political power across white Republican-leaning parts of the state.
Similar efforts are underway in Republican-dominated Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.
Harris added that Supreme Court ruling in Callais was part of the GOP’s plan to “cheat” in upcoming midterms, with voting already underway in some states where lawmakers are redrawing political boundaries.
The former vice president, who is considering entering the race for president in 2028 after losing to Donald Trump in 2024, said voters are “paying attention” while Republican officials are drafting new election rules.
“[People are] paying attention to what’s happening with gas prices,” she said. “They’re paying attention to this war nobody wanted or asked for. They’re paying attention to inflation going up, unemployment going up.”
Republicans will “cheat based on an agenda and a playbook that has been a long time in the making, that is about making elections more difficult — access to the polls more difficult for the people — because they are afraid of the power of the people,” she said.
Harris’ remarks were met with swift backlash from Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who accused her and Democratic officials of being “institutional arsonists.”
“It’s a dangerous thing, a dangerous gambit,” Johnson said. “You don’t just blow up the system when you lose.”
“For the former vice president of the United States and a candidate for president to suggest that you should pack the Supreme Court or destroy these institutions because they lost is I just think outrageous,” he added.
