Mapped out

It appears that the Supreme Court is where minority voting rights are going to die, as the five-justice conservative bloc — with the noble and notable exception of Chief Justice John Roberts, who seems to have a few shreds of principle left — decided to overrule a lower court and allow Alabama’s new racially gerrymandered electoral map to stay in effect at least through its May primaries.

Alabama officials rushed to the nation’s highest court after a three-judge federal panel (including, for what it’s worth, two Trump-appointed judges) twice sided against the state after reviewing more than 1,000 pages of briefing materials and conducting more than two weeks of hearings.

These materials — and a detailed 225-page decision — meticulously documented an obvious reality: Alabama lawmakers carved up their state to force as many Black voters as possible into a single congressional district and rob the rest of the Black population dispersed throughout the state of the possibility of having a meaningful political voice. Black voters, 27% of the state’s population, were essentially resigned to elect just 14% of its congressional seats.

This is in violation not only of the plain text of the Voting Rights Act itself but years of precedents, which the majority appears content to jettison at the drop of a hat. To these textualists, laws matter until they don’t.

By putting the lower ruling on hold, SCOTUS isn’t just maintaining a status quo; it is choosing to shrug its shoulders and allow an election to proceed in what exhaustive evidence has shown to be an unlawful manner. It is effectively siding with the state while disingenuously punting on the substance to another day.

The move essentially grants a green light to every other state legislature itching to redraw its maps to minimize certain constituencies’ power. Why bother even attempting to comply with voting rights rulings when it’s clear that SCOTUS can be counted on to step in and allow egregious gerrymandering — racial, hyperpartisan or otherwise?