Voting Rights Act ruling is ‘red meat’ to Republicans in south, says Black lawmaker targeted by gerrymander

Representative Bennie Thompson: ‘Mischief could creep back in.’ Photograph: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

The supreme court decision that effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) “was red meat to the Republican legislators of the south” the US House representative Bennie Thompson said.

Conservative lawmakers in Mississippi, where Thompson is both the state’s lone Black and only Democratic congressional representative, have used the opportunity to explicitly target him, threatening to redraw the second congressional district, that he represents.