Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama — three states that were part of the Confederacy that was founded in part to maintain the institution of slavery — are now at the forefront of a new effort to rebel against court rulings aimed at securing the voting rights of Black Americans.

The Atlantic’s David Graham writes that those three states’ Republican-led state legislatures have, in recent months, shown a defiant attitude toward legal mandates that they redraw their voting maps so as not to dilute the power of Black voters in their states.

Although Graham said it would be possible to dismiss one of these states’ resistance to court orders as an aberration, he thinks that having three states engaged in the same conduct makes it part of a dangerous trend.

“That state politicians now see incentives to defy federal-court orders, for whatever reason, poses a danger to national unity, the rule of law, and, ultimately, the Constitution,” he writes.

Graham does not ascribe the actions of the GOP legislators’ […]