Former President Barack Obama was lambasted for rebuking a new Supreme Court ruling against race-based redistricting in Louisiana, just days after cutting ads for a Virginia effort to transform that state’s map into a 10-1 Democratic advantage.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Louisiana’s 2024 mid-decade redistricting that produced a serpentine district represented by Rep. Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge, calling it an “illegal” racial gerrymander, while Obama argued the decision weakened a Voting Rights Act provision prohibiting race-based discrimination.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities — so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit ‘racial bias’,” Obama said.
“Unless it’s Virginia. In that case, it’s great to have a 10-1 gerrymander,” Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer replied in a post on X.
SPANBERGER FACES ‘BAIT-AND-SWITCH’ BACKLASH IN FINAL HOURS BEFORE REDISTRICTING REFERENDUM
Fleischer was joined by former North Carolina Congressman and ex-Trump aide Mark Meadows, who addressed Obama to say his rebuke was “beneath you.”
Former DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin also weighed in, remarking that, to the former president, “disenfranchising millions of voters and forcing 45% of Virginians to be represented by one congressional district and 55% represented by 10 is now ‘standing up for Democracy.’
“Is that ‘equity’? What a farce.”
Obama went on to slam the current makeup of the Supreme Court and its conservative majority, saying its decision in the case is another example of “abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.”
Other critics noted Obama has been mum on his own home state’s gerrymandered map, which features several zigzagging districts connecting disparate neighborhoods and suburbs of Chicago, while other Democratic strongholds form serpentine districts around the interior of the state to connect cities like Champaign, Springfield and Moline with other Democratic areas.
Other critics noted how Democrats control every congressional district in New England, plus Hawaii, citing reported figures that all of those states have Republican populations between 32% and 48%, but none of those voters have like-minded representation in Washington.
The 44th president added that setbacks like that can be overcome, calling on Americans who respect “democratic ideals” to vote in record numbers to outweigh any electoral changes brought on by the court’s decision.
In his own reading of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel Alito said that when “correctly understood, [it] does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map.”
Just days earlier, Obama was front and center in the largely Democratic-led “Vote Yes” campaign in Virginia, where the commonwealth’s Democratic legislative majority and Gov. Abigail Spanberger backed a voter referendum to implement their own mid-decade redistricting that would favor their party for at least the next four years.
DEMOCRATS WIN VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING FIGHT, THREATENING REPUBLICAN HOUSE MAJORITY
The approved map would transform Virginia’s 6-5 Democratic congressional majority into a likely 10-1 split by redrawing rural districts to include Washington, D.C., suburbs or the Richmond-Petersburg metro area, which proponents like Obama said is needed to restore fairness on a national level.
“By voting yes, you have a chance to do something important, not just for the commonwealth but for our entire country. By voting yes, you can push back on the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms,” Obama said.
Obama claimed in a pro-Yes ad that supporters could “level the playing field.”
CARVILLE AND CO-HOST LAMENT THAT TRUMP SPARKED A REDISTRICTING WAR, MAKING BOTH PARTIES LOOK CYNICAL
While largely a Democratic concern, and as newly drawn districts in Louisiana and Alabama favored Democrats, Virginia’s “yes” campaign did have support from a handful of non-Democrats such as anti-Trump former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.
Like Louisiana’s map, Virginia’s plan has been subject to dueling litigation, including a recent move by a circuit judge in Tazewell County in the western mountains to place a hold on certification of the “Yes” vote, while the state Supreme Court considers a case over the referendum’s legislative process and legitimacy.
In a statement, Fields said Wednesday’s high court decision “dismantled” decades of settled law and was not a “neutral reading” of the Voting Rights Act.
“Today’s majority has resurrected exactly that standard — and the practical effect is to make it far harder for minority communities to challenge redistricting maps that dilute their political voice,” Fields said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Obama for comment on criticisms.
Fox News’ David Spunt contributed to this report.