As the Supreme Court gathered to determine the fate of race-based congressional districts, the cast of CNN’s Wednesday edition of Inside Politics gathered for its corresponding freak-out session. Most notably, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Washington Bureau Chief Tia Mitchell tried to claim that such districts are still necessary because black voters are still being disenfranchised by Republicans.
Host Dana Bash set Mitchell up by declaring, “I mean, there's so many critical angles to this, and the way that the House of Representatives would look would be different in terms of numbers, but also the way it would look in terms of race and representation would be very, very different. And Tia, David mentioned Chief Justice Roberts, if you go back to 2007, and one of the opinions that he wrote, he said, 'The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating based on race.’”
She then scoffed, “I mean, that is a lovely thought. And the question before the Court is whether the United States of America is there right now.”
Mitchell began by claiming, “My question is, is the Court—how do you find evidence that states and, of course, this is going to have a trickle-down effect all the way down to local governments. But there's repeatedly evidence that race, you know, black voters are not— are being disenfranchised. They're not getting equal representation.”
Historically speaking, the Voting Rights Act sought to combat disenfranchisement, which was defined as preventing black people from voting at all. However, Mitchell changed the definition of the word to mean that black voters—and by that, she clearly meant black Democrats—have a right to see their preferred candidate win:
So even at that Louisiana map, when you're talking about a state where one-third of the voters are black, but that is not reflected in a lot of these governing bodies, particularly in Congress, until they were mandated to draw that second majority-black district. So how do you now argue, 'Well, we think if left to own their devices, the legislators in Louisiana are going to do the right thing.'
Mitchell continued, “There's just not evidence of that. So, and I know that there are a lot of people who say we're past that. We're past the Jim Crow era. We're past the era of just drawing maps just to disenfranchise black people. But there is evidence, Black Voters Matter, they put out a really good primer on this case, and they talked about that there are, you know, Republican operatives that were helping draw maps in multiple states that talked about using race as a factor in how they drew lines in certain states.”
BVM is currently free to try to convince the Court that Republicans are running afoul of the Constitution by using race to draw their maps, but BVM’s lack of success does not mean disenfranchisement is rampant.
As for Mitchell, she concluded, “So, the evidence just— I know that there are a lot of people who want it to be, you know, want it to be a certain way. But the evidence is not that the U.S. has got there.”
Mitchell’s entire point was that opponents of Section 2 of the VRA need to prove America has moved past the need for its existence, but the opposite is true. Mitchell needs to prove that America is still stuck in the days of Jim Crow, poll taxes, literacy tests, property requirements, and the like.
Here is a transcript for the October 15 show:
CNN Inside Politics with Dana Bash
10/15/2025
12:04 PM ET
DANA BASH: I mean, there's so many critical angles to this, and the way that the House of Representatives would look would be different in terms of numbers, but also the way it would look in terms of race and representation would be very, very different. And Tia, David mentioned Chief Justice Roberts, if you go back to 2007, and one of the opinions that he wrote, he said “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating based on race.”
I mean, that is a lovely thought. And the question before the Court is whether the United States of America is there right now.
TIA MITCHELL: And my question is, is the Court—how do you find evidence that states and, of course, this is going to have a trickle-down effect all the way down to local governments. But there's repeatedly evidence that race, you know, black voters are not— are being disenfranchised. They're not getting equal representation. So even at that Louisiana map, when you're talking about a state where one-third of the voters are black, but that is not reflected in a lot of these governing bodies, particularly in Congress, until they were mandated to draw that second majority-black district. So how do you now argue, “Well, we think if left to own their devices, the legislators in Louisiana are going to do the right thing.”
There's just not evidence of that. So, and I know that there are a lot of people who say we're past that. We're past the Jim Crow era. We're past the era of just drawing maps just to disenfranchise black people. But there is evidence, Black Voters Matter, they put out a really good primer on this case, and they talked about that there are, you know, Republican operatives that were helping draw maps in multiple states that talked about using race as a factor in how they drew lines in certain states.
So, the evidence just— I know that there are a lot of people who want it to be, you know, want it to be a certain way. But the evidence is not that the U.S. has got there.
