The disintegration of the Section 2 guardrails should concern both the Court’s conservative majority and voting-rights plaintiffs. Without these constraints, political majorities will have freer rein, leading to escalating partisan tactics. Political losers will continue to turn to the courts to arbitrate these disputes, even though the courts are ill-equipped to address the underlying structural problem. In fact, we are already seeing partisans act as though they face no meaningful constraints, anticipating Section 2’s eventual demise. Stripping away these guardrails will only intensify and accelerate these dynamics. The loss of Section 2 would thus mark not only a setback for racial representation, but a deeper blow to the principle of limited majority rule itself.

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