M.D. Kittle writes for the Federalist about the significance of the US Supreme Court’s high-profile redistricting decision this week.
It’s been a long week for the gerrymandering Democrats. …
… [T]he most impactful decision arrived on Wednesday. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 bombshell ruling gutting the discriminatory practice of racial gerrymandering in the redistricting process. The 6-3 majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, found unconstitutional the twisting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by courts “to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”
“It’s been a good week” for the rule of law, election law expert Hans von Spakovsky told The Federalist following the SCOTUS ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. …
… [T]he Supreme Court took issue with Louisiana creating a second majority-black district in its congressional maps. The Pelican State did so after a lower court found the lack of two majority-black congressional districts likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The 1965 civil rights law “prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate” against individuals based on race or color.
The majority opinion rejects the premise that race should be considered in drawing up congressional maps based on the “compelling interest” of states to comply with the VRA.
“Compliance with §2 thus could not justify the State’s use of race-based redistricting here. The State’s attempt to satisfy the Middle District’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and we therefore affirm the decision below,” Alito wrote. …
… The left, of course, went full-on apoplectic. …
… The left’s corporate media PR agents brought the same level of hysteria. The New York Times headline summed up the screaming, “Justices Further Weakens Voting Rights Act, Igniting Political Scramble.”
Von Spakovsky, who served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice in President George W. Bush’s administration, said the the left’s hysteria level is akin to how Democrats greeted the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which found unconstitutional another section of the Voting Rights Act.
