Inside the New Redistricting Wars with Richard Pildes and Jason Torchinsky

Congressional maps are being redrawn in the middle of the decade, the Supreme Court has sharply narrowed a core piece of the Voting Rights Act, and both parties are racing to squeeze out every seat they can before 2028. On this episode of Early Returns, host Jan Baran sorts through what is actually happening with two lawyers who have argued these cases: Richard Pildes, professor of law at NYU and former legal advisor to the Obama and Biden campaigns, and Jason Torchinsky, partner at Holtzman Vogel and counsel in the recent Louisiana case before the Court. The conversation explains how redistricting got here — from the one-person, one-vote rule to the Voting Rights Act and the limits the Supreme Court placed on the use of race in drawing districts — and what the Louisiana decision in Callais changes going forward. Pildes and Torchinsky discuss the role of partisan motivation in map-drawing, the population shifts expected to move 10 to 15 House seats from blue states to red after the 2030 census, and where the redistricting fights head next. Pildes also reflects on his work for President Biden's commission on the Supreme Court. About Richard Pildes Richard Pildes is one of the nation’s leading scholars of constitutional law and a specialist in legal issues concerning democracy. A former law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, he has been elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, and has also received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. President Biden appointed him to the President’s Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. In dozens of articles and his acclaimed casebook, The Law of Democracy, he has helped create an entirely new field of study in the law schools. His work in this field systematically explores legal and policy issues concerning the structure of democratic elections and institutions, such as the role of money in politics, the design of election districts, the regulation of political parties, the structure of voting systems, the representation of minority interests in democratic institutions, and similar issues. He has written on the rise of political polarization in the United States, the transformation of the presidential nominations process, the Voting Rights Act (including editing a book titled The Future of the Voting Rights Act), the dysfunction of America’s political processes, the role of the Supreme Court in overseeing American democracy, and the powers of the American President and Congress. In addition to his scholarship in these areas, he has written on national-security law, the design of the regulatory state, and American constitutional history and theory. As a lawyer, Pildes has successfully argued voting-rights and election-law cases before the United States Supreme Court and the courts of appeals, and as a well-known public commentator, he writes frequently for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and was part of the Emmy-nominated NBC breaking-news team for coverage of the 2000 Bush v. Gore contest.  Pildes received his A.B. in physical chemistry summa cum laude from Princeton, and his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he served as Supreme Court Note Editor on the Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing law in Boston, he began his academic career at the University of Michigan Law School, before joining the NYU School of Law in 2001. About Jason Torchinsky Jason Torchinsky is a partner at Holtzman Vogel, specializing in campaign finance, government ethics laws, election law, lobbying disclosure and issue advocacy groups. In addition to his practice counseling clients on political law compliance, Jason has served as lead counsel in a number of litigation matters dealing with First Amendment freedoms, antisemitism and anti-terrorism, election law and redistricting issues.  He is also recognized by Chambers USA and Washingtonian Magazine as one of the top “Political Law” attorneys in the country. Torchinsky has filed numerous cert petitions, jurisdictional statements, and amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court.  At the Supreme Court, he won a summary reversal from a redistricting case out of Michigan, and was counsel in a rarely granted petition for cert before judgment in another redistricting matter.  His amicus briefs on behalf of the NRSC and NRCC was cited in the Court’s opinion in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. Jason has also represented candidates across the country during post-election canvass and recount processes. Following the events of October 7, Torchinsky lead the creation of Holtzman Vogel’s antisemitism practice.  Prior to joining Holtzman Vogel, Torchinsky was counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice, Deputy...