{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/senator-schmitt-racial-gerrymandering-is-illegal-doj-must-enforce-the-law/", "Senator Schmitt: \u201cRacial Gerrymandering is Illegal, DOJ Must Enforce the Law\u201d", "2026-05-19", "2026", "2026-05", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Eric Schmitt", "S001227", "www.schmitt.senate.gov", "schmitt", "https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "Schmitt Chairs Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on Enforcing SCOTUS\u2019 Callais Decision Across the U.S.\n\nU.S. SENATE \u2014 U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) today chaired a Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing on the enforcement of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Louisiana v. Callais to end the practice of racial gerrymandering under the guise of compliance with the Voting Rights Act.\n\nWatch Schmitt\u2019s full opening remarks HERE.\n\n\u201cCalifornia 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.\n\n\u201cI 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.\n\n\u201cPrivate plaintiffs have a role too. Bring the cases now. Challenge the illegal maps now. Ask the courts to act now.\n\n\u201cWe 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.\n\n\u201cThe Left will say this \u2018guts\u2019 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.\n\n\u201cRacial 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,\u201d said Senator Schmitt.\n\nSenator Schmitt questioned Edward Greim, the lawyer who successfully argued Louisiana v. Callais before the Supreme Court, about whether Democrats\u2019 accusations that the decision \u201cguts\u201d the VRA were true. Greim responded: \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d\n\nSchmitt 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\u2019s line of questioning HERE.\n\n###", 1, "2026-05-20T06:27:31Z", "2026-05-20T06:28:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.schmitt.senate.gov/media/press-releases/senator-schmitt-racial-gerrymandering-is-illegal-doj-must-enforce-the-law/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8714030738919973, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}