June 8, 2023
"The Supreme Court, in a surprise decision, ruled that Alabama had diluted the power of Black voters by drawing a congressional voting map..."
"... with a single district in which they made up a majority.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 ruling. He was joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal members, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Voting rights advocates had feared the decision would undermine the Voting Rights Act, which instead appeared to emerge unscathed.
The chief justice wrote that there were legitimate concerns that the law 'may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the states.' He added: 'Our opinion today does not diminish or disregard these concerns. It simply holds that a faithful application of our precedents and a fair reading of the record before us do not bear them out here.'"
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42 comments:
Roberts and Kavanaugh. Of course. I knew Kavanaugh was Anthony Kennedy light. And Roberts has always stabbed us in the back, whenver it mattered. He's a Bushie.
I read the dissent and it made 10x more sense than Roberts and his meandering nonsense. There seems to be 3 blocs on SCOTUS. Those who want bright lines and clear decisive decisions. THe 3 liberal/leftist who just vote their politics. And then justices like Roberts who just swing back and forth without any clear principles and write long-winded ambigious decisions.
We can thank Trump for at least putting 2 good judges on the Court. If we'd gotten Hillary, one shutters to think where we'd be. Just remember that Ben Shapiro, Mitch McConnnell, and a lot of other fake-cons wanted to make Hillary POTUS.
Should have been 9-0.
Vicki from Pasadena
Now I wonder why the NYTimes and/or Adam Liptak thought this decision a surprise.
Perhaps they need to adjust their abilities to forecast, or maybe evaluate their own prejudices and bias.
Bone thrown.
"in a surprise decision"
Really? Surprising to whom? While they are unanimous (or close to it) more often they they are sharply divided, the justices often disagree amongst themselves about what the law requires and what the facts in the record show (and which ones each justice finds relevant to the legal issue the court is deciding). But the left/right narrative about the Court has never been particularly useful in understanding how the justices individually reach their conclusions. A better (more accurate too) view is that they are all trying to get it right even as they sometimes begin from different views about the law's requirements. Observers like Liptak will form their own views (based on the reasoning in the published opinions) about how well the justices succeeded -- an exercise usually determined by the view of the law from which the observer is coming.
And absolutely nothing surprising in that Liptak specifically and the NYT generally want to cling to the idea that the SCOTUS has become an illegitimate political institution because six of the nine were nominated by Rep presidents.
I’m a surprise ruling, racist Roberts sides with anti-racists.
There ought to be a law saying that after so many “surprises” the surprised ought to stare at the mirror in a corner.
Should have been 9-0
Vicki from Pasadena
Whatever happened to “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Our Chief Justice seems to be both a liar and a hypocrite. Tis a sordid business, indeed!!!
isn't it NEAT? how, once a judge lives in fear of his life for a year or so..
He decides that he "Ought To Do" WHAT EVER the dems tell him to do?
The One-Year Anniversary of the Assassination Attempt on SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh
the powerful Democratic figures, pro-abortion dark money groups and activists who fanned the flames and stoked the woke outrage mobs that swarmed the conservative Justices’ homes have not been held to Any account.
Did they dilute the power of "Democratic" voters which resulted in a single Black majority district? Is it possible to draw districts favorable to Republicans without creating a single Black majority district?
Why can't Black Democrats get elected in majority White districts like Black Republicans do? Doesn't this decision rely on the racial assumption that Black people all vote the same way? (Which of course they do)
Ann, did you change your font? This is hard to read.
I guess that Chuck Schumer's threats worked with the two squishes, as expected.
Critical Democratic Diversity. Color, class, party, partisan, or geography?
Alabama was just doing what the Voting Rights Act was interpreted as demanding previously- that blacks be given their own majority-minority districts. Alabama probably could have gone the other way and given the Democrats no seats at all by drawing districts that divided the black population up completely- hard, but not impossible, even in heavily black Alabama. That's the thing about redistricting- if you have a 60-40 state in voting preferences, you can redistrict in such a way as to completely lock the minority party out of getting any seats. I don't care how homogenous or heterogenous the voters are in the given state. The Democrats had screwed themselves, though, with interpreting the Voting Rights Act as mandating majority-minority districts- the only real way to create these in most states is with a gerrymander itself.
What is likely to happen is that Alabama will dilute the black vote in such a way as to elect a white Democrat to a single seat rather than a black Democrat.
[catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform, both legal and illegal, and abortion, have diluted the power of American voters.
Illinois used the meridian of 294 to link 2 communites. It looked like a dumbell.
Bone thrown.
I think so too. It won't do any good though.
Of course it’s just fine to carbe out districts to favor one racial group over another so long as the isn’t white.
"We can thank Trump for at least putting 2 good judges on the Court. If we'd gotten Hillary, one shutters to think where we'd be."
She might well have proposed the very same judges, or other judges of the same ilk. Hillary remains the Goldwater Girl she once more overtly was.
Would the opinion have been fundamentally different if Alabama had done it per Yancey Ward's analysis first? My money is on 'no'.
Gahrie said...Doesn't this decision rely on the racial assumption that Black people all vote the same way? (Which of course they do)
Explicitly, yes. The rationale behind creating black majority districts is that blacks and whites vote for different people and therefore blacks are disenfranchised when they are in the minority.
Is a black person who votes for a loser more disenfranchised than a white person who votes for a loser--even if it's the same loser?
The real question, the one they won't answer is, if everyone votes for the loser sometimes, some people vote for the loser most of the time, and a few people vote for the loser all the time, why do some of those losing votes mean disenfranchisement while others don't?
She might well have proposed the very same judges, or other judges of the same ilk. Hillary remains the Goldwater Girl she once more overtly was.
Can I have some of what you are smoking, Cookie?
Should have been 9-0
Vicki from Pasadena
Yeah, but which way?
Cookie, if you think Hillary is anything but a doctrinaire leftwing radical, you've been in the sun too long.
Doesn't this mean a black Democrat candidate is less likely to hold onto office since there will be a lower % of black Democrats voters in the district? Yet, that would give them more of a chance in the second district. It could be they win neither and have less representation in the end.
@Vicki from Pasadena: Should have been 9-0.
With the opinions as a basis, please demonstrate how those that were wrong were in error. Use charts, equations, and direct quotes as required.
Oh, and don't forget constitutional principles.
He was joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the court’s (other) three liberal members ...
"Blogger Lyle said...
Doesn't this mean a black Democrat candidate is less likely to hold onto office since there will be a lower % of black Democrats voters in the district? Yet, that would give them more of a chance in the second district. It could be they win neither and have less representation in the end."
That will be the next lawsuit when they cannot steal enough votes to get both districts in black hands.
Blogger Butkus51 said...
"Illinois used the meridian of 294 to link 2 communites. It looked like a dumbell."
It's the only way They could make Ohare Airport part of Chicago.
I live in a district in Los Angeles 4 miles west of downtown that has successively been gerrymandered into East LA for a Hispanic winner (Becerra), into South LA for a Black winner (Karen Bass), and now into the Westside and SF Valley for a doctrinaire DNC apparatchik (Adam Schiff). Elections are formalities out my way. The powers that be simply sit down and arrange to make my and my neighbors' puny votes a joke.
We normals deserve protection, too.
You want to preserve common interests like urban/rural, but I don't know that race is a good one to wire in.
Let's get this clear here. Mississippi was discriminating on the basis of color. Make that ghetto district as black as it can be, an idea first adopted by Democrats in response to the Civil rights act. Then they handpicked the people to run those seats based on loyalty to the Democratic Party and not the people they were supposed to serve.
What happens when they re-district white neighborhoods??
Is that a dilution of power as well??
This constant pandering to victim groups seems to be just for the sake of sensational guilt-laden headlines. I think that's why the newspapers are failing. They aren't reporting news.
"The chief justice wrote that there were legitimate concerns that the law 'may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the states.' He added: 'Our opinion today does not diminish or disregard these concerns. It simply holds that a faithful application of our precedents and a fair reading of the record before us do not bear them out here.'"
That sounds like an invitation. Instead of whining, why not read the precedents and study the record in this case, and craft the next districting map accordingly?
Blacks make up roughly 1/4th of the population in Alabama and there are 7 congressional districts. Hard for me to figure out how one Black majority district is significantly underrepresenting Black voters. Wouldn’t two districts be over representing Blacks?
What am I missing here?
tommyesq, for the voters of Alabama, duh.
Vicki from Pasadena
Another time and the northern minds are still stubbornly punishing the south for the War of the Southern Rebellion. No other reason but fictional stories from the distant past. It reminds me of Canadian politics where the people solely vote on who hates the USA the most. But in the USA the votes turn on who hates the south the most.
OK, there is your Reparation, You will get a vote in congress. Don't ask for another then.
The PhD (piled higher and deeper) method of gerrymandering in urbane environments and redistributive change to aid and abet progressive spread and dilution with DEI (e.g. racist) motives.
When democrats do it, it is redistricting
When Republicans do it, it is gerrymandering
simple
And yet there was great pressure in some places to build districts that assure minority victories. At the time these were considered wonderful victories. But, go ahead and make the minority districts closer to 50:50. Might end the terms of Mensa members like Rep. Johnson.
2020 Election results 6 white Republicans and Terri Sewell (D), a black woman.
2022 Election results 6 white Republicans and Terri Sewell (D), a black woman.
Racial gerrymandering is a menace.
Kavanaugh and Roberts found the redistricting to violate Section 2 of the Voter's Rights Act. As did two Trump appointees in a three-judge finding in the Court of Appeals.
Noted racist Clarence Thomas stuck with the minority in finding it lawful.
It is almost like something other than cookie cutter partisan politics is going on here. It would be nice if literally anyone would look at this as something other than racial and partisan politics at work. But looking at this comment stream, people are being fed what they want.
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