Supreme Court Torches the Voting Rights Act

Oh my.  This was a tough one.  It happened a couple of weeks ago, but I am still reeling.  The Supreme Court upended another ruling that had been accepted as precedent for decades.  Southern states are responding to the decision and it's not pretty.  What an ugly, ugly mess.  

It started in Louisiana.  Louisiana has six US House representatives.  One third of the people of Louisiana are black.  The districts had been drawn to reflect that, allowing for two representative districts to be in predominantly black areas.  Meanwhile the state has never had a black governor or any black senators.   A Louisiana voter challenged the way the districts had been drawn.  


The Louisiana v. Callais suit went all the way to the Supreme Court.  The final decision split with all 6 right wing justices saying Louisiana's gerrymandering was unconstitutional.  The 3 left wing justices voted to stand by precedent (the way the 1965 Voting Rights Act had been interpreted for decades).  


Side note:  Several of the justices have been in the news this past year or so with allegations they accepted VERY LARGE "gifts" from people with special interests going before the court.  TNone of those justices bothered to recuse themselves from those cases and they voted in favor of the grifters.  Oops, I meant GIFTers.    John Roberts is the latest to be in hot water.





Since this decision, all hell has been breaking loose with numbers states changing voting districts in numerous ways.  Louisiana stopped an election already in progress to redraw the districts.  Virginia and Tennessee quickly joined in the chaos and more states are moving to do the same.


Voters in Virginia had voted on a temporary redistricting referendum to counter against extremely partisan Republican gerrymanders in Texas, Florida, Ohio and others.  Our country is in a gerrymander war it seems.  The Virginia state supreme court over-ruled the people's vote.  See more -   Virginia Supreme Court throws out redistricting results in blow to Democrats - The Hill.  


Tennessee redistricted without input from voters.   Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature approved a new congressional map Thursday that dismantles the state’s majority-Black district and will likely secure them an all-GOP federal delegation.   See more - Tennessee Republicans pass new gerrymander following Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act ruling - Politico




Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino, said the decision will allow more aggressive “cracking and packing” of populations to dilute their votes, “not just in congressional districts but also in state legislatures, county commissions, school boards and city councils.”  (AP) 





CRACKING, PACKING and GERRYMANDERING -

Gerrymandering is a way that some politicians try to win elections by changing the
voting maps. It’s not about getting more votes—it’s about drawing the lines in a way that
helps their team win, even if fewer people vote for them.

Packing is when they take a group of people who usually vote the same way and squish them all into one district. That way, those voters can only help pick one leader—even though they could have helped pick more if they were spread out.

Cracking is when a group of voters is split up into many districts, so their voices get weaker in each one. Imagine you and four friends want to play a team game. Together, you’re strong and could win. But someone splits you up, putting each of you on a different team. Now none of your teams win. Your group was strong, but it got broken apart. That’s what cracking does to voters—it breaks up their power.

The Supreme Court has recently overturned several longstanding precedents, including significant cases related to abortion rights and administrative law, reflecting a shift in its approach to previous rulings. This trend has raised concerns about the Court's legitimacy and adherence to the principle of stare decisis.

Stare Decisis is a legal doctrine that means "to stand by things decided," which requires courts to follow precedents set by previous decisions when making rulings on similar cases. This principle promotes consistency and predictability in the law.


READ MORE 

 'If You Can Keep It': The Supreme Court And The Voting Rights Act - NPR.  (This link includes an audio discussion.)  Last week, in a six-to-three ruling along ideological lines, the Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  That’s the landmark Civil Rights era law designed to prevent racial discrimination in an election. The law was passed to unravel Jim Crow era policies that limited or blocked Black Americans’ access to the ballot.  But the ruling goes further. It effectively rewrites the rules for how the Voting Rights Act can be used to challenge discriminatory maps, making it much harder to do so going forward. It’s the latest in a string of rulings making the last all but moot.

Supreme Court hollows out a landmark law that had protected minority voting rights for 6 decades - AP.  Voting rights experts said the ruling leaves the Voting Rights Act only a shell of what it had been and will provide an open door for political mapmakers at every level — from local school districts to state legislatures to Congress — to undermine minority representation. 

Supreme Court Updates: Justices Further Weaken Voting Rights Act, Igniting Political Scramble - NYT It is unclear how the decision, which split 6-3 along ideological lines, will impact November’s midterm elections amid redistricting battles that have raged in multiple states, but several are moving to draw new congressional maps in time. The decision is likely to create new Republican districts across the South for future elections, for the presidential election in 2028 and beyond.

The Supreme Court keeps overturning precedent. It swears that it’s not - CNN. “The upshot is that the majority, without any good reason, has overturned Congress’s studied determination — along with this court’s precedents upholding it — about how to rectify racial inequalities in electoral politics,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent for the three liberal justices.

WHO TO CONTACT

Your opinion only matters to our lawmakers if you let them know!  The more people who speak up, the more meaningful our opinions will be.  Don't wait to figure out the perfect people to contact or the perfect thing to say.  Just start!!!




You can write one of the justices -

John Roberts (Conservative)
The Chief Justice of the United States
One First Street N.E.,
Washington, D.C., 20543

For any other Supreme Court justice, 
address the envelope to: 

Justice (surname), 
The Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street N.E.
Washington, D.C., 20543

The other 5 Conservative Justices -
Clarence Thomas
Samuel Alito 
Neil Gorsuch
Brett Kavanaugh 
Amy Coney Barrett

THANK YOU to the Liberal Justices:
Elena Kagan 
Sonia Sotomayor
Ketanji Brown Jackson


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