The Alito crew ARE working HARD to erase the America Voting Civil Rights actions for people of color in America…
This decision probably will have some Red States seeking to make last minute Midterm changes to disfranchise blacks, browns and yellows in voting representation….
The Right Leaners on the court seem NOT innocent in setting back race politics in America….
The ruling also carries significant symbolic weight, effectively scaling back the last major pillar of a 60-year-old law long considered one of the marquee achievements of the civil rights era. The Voting Rights Act bans discriminatory voting practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and has helped greatly increase minority representation in state and federal offices.
In an ideologically divided 6-3 ruling, the conservative justices created a higher bar for the law’s powerful provision that allows states to use race to draw maps that help minority communities elect candidates of their choice. Section 2, as it is known, is aimed at combating discriminatory gerrymandering that weakens the power of Black, Latino, Native American and Asian voters.
States must walk a careful line when drawing maps for voting districts. The Voting Rights Act directs states to consider race to some degreewhen redistricting to ensure that racial minority groups have an opportunity to elect representatives who reflect their priorities. Maps explicitly drawn along racial lines, however, violate the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting practices.
The court’s conservative majority found Louisiana unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority-Black congressional district to comply with the VRA. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the opinion for the majority.
“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act … was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it,” Alito wrote. “Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s [Section] 2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”….
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The Supreme Court’s decision probably gives Republicans an opportunity to draw even more districts in their favor.
The deadlines for most states to redraw their maps before the midterms have passed, but it’s possible some states push to change those rules. Either way, the ruling could set Republicans up for advantages in 2028 and beyond.
This Supreme Court term is shaping up as a consequential one for election-related law….
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The court’s Left leaning Justices are NOT happy with the Alito group….
The Supreme Court’s liberal justices called their colleagues’ decision clawing back race-based redistricting on Wednesday a “now-completed demolition” of the Voting Rights Act.
In a 48-page dissent, Justice Elena Kagan held up the landmark 1965 law as helpful to the nation’s progress on racial discrimination.
“At this last stage, the Court’s gutting of Section 2 puts that achievement in peril,” Kagan wrote.
“I dissent because Congress elected otherwise,” she continued. “I dissent because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity. I dissent.”
She read her dissent aloud from the bench, a rare move the justices reserve for when they want to express their strong disagreements in a case.
Kagan’s opinion was joined by her two fellow liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
It came as the Supreme Court declared Louisiana’s addition of a second majority-Black congressional district an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The 6-3 decision along ideological lines stands to claw back advocacy groups’ ability to force new districts over claims that minority voting power is being diluted.
As Justice Samuel Alito cast the conservative majority’s decision as merely an “update” to the Voting Rights Act framework that would ensure judges don’t stretch the law too far, Kagan said he was understating the impact. “Even antiseptic,” she wrote….
The Worst Ruling in a Century
Rick Hasen: “Wednesday’s 6-3 party line decision in Louisiana v. Callais will go down in history as one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century.”
“All six Republican-appointed justices on the court signed onto Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters, while pretending they were merely making technical tweaks to the Act.”
“This decision will bleach the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and local bodies like city councils, by ending the protections of Section 2 of the Act, which had provided a pathway to assure that voters of color would have some rudimentary fair representation. It’s the culmination of the life’s work of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who have shown persistent resistance to the idea of the United States as a multiracial democracy, and a brazen willingness to reject Congress’s judgment that fair representation for minority voters sometimes requires race-conscious legislation.”
“It gives the green light to further partisan gerrymandering. It protects Alito’s core constituency: aggrieved white Republican voters. It’s a disaster for American democracy.”
Political Wire