Yesterday, the Supreme Court held the long-awaited argument in Louisiana v. Callais, considering an appeal of Louisiana’s congressional map. The two majority-black districts are being challenged under the 15th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as unconstitutionally gerrymandered on the basis of race. The case could result in a rejection of race-based congressional districting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Notably, the Louisiana case was previously argued, but on the last day before the summer recess, the court issued an order setting the case for a second oral argument in the 2025-26 term. It later directed the litigants to file briefs addressing:
“whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority district violates either the 14th Amendment or the 15th Amendment, which bars the government from denying or restricting voting rights based on race.”
On Wednesday, I was addressing the annual conference of chief judges, speaking on the Supreme Court. I discussed some of the current cases, including Louisiana v. Callais. I noted that there may now be a majority in favor of a significant change on Section 2, but that some of us would be listening for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett as indicators of the Court balance.
We did hear from Kavanaugh and Barrett and the challengers could take heart in the skepticism that they expressed over the indefinite use of race in such districting.
The oral argument took an interesting turn when Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sought to push back on the need to show a discriminatory intent. She interjected:
“I guess I’m thinking of it, of the fact that remedial action, absent discriminatory intent, is really not a new idea in the civil rights laws. And my kind of paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA. Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act against the backdrop of a world that was generally not accessible to people with disabilities.
And so it was discriminatory in effect because these folks were not able to access these buildings. And it didn’t matter whether the person who built the building or the person who owned the building intended for them to be exclusionary. That’s irrelevant.
Congress said the facilities have to be made equally open to people with disabilities if readily possible. I guess I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here. The idea in Section 2 is that we are responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system.
They’re disabled. In fact, we use the word disabled in Milligan. We say that’s a way in which you see that these processes are not equally open.”
Justice Jackson appears to be referring to this paragraph in Allen v. Milligan:
“Individuals thus lack an equal opportunity to participate in the political process when a State’s electoral structure operates in a manner that “minimize[s] or cancel[s] out the[ir] voting strength.” Id., at 47. That occurs where an individual is disabled from “enter[ing] into the political process in a reliable and meaningful manner” “in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise.” White, 412 U. S., at 767, 770. A district is not equally open, in other words, when minority voters face—unlike their majority peers—bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter.” (emphasis added)
The court was not making an analogy to the ADA (though, in fairness to Justice Jackson, she was not suggesting that it made that point). It is also worth noting that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote:
“We have understood the language of §2 against the background of the hard-fought compromise that Congress struck. To that end, we have reiterated that §2 turns on the presence of discriminatory effects, not discriminatory intent.”
Milligan was deeply fractured and the question is whether five justices would now elect to set aside or reframe some of these former rulings.
During the oral argument, Roberts seemed to do precisely that in the use of Milligan, remarking “That case took the existing precedent as a given, it was a case in which we were considering Alabama’s particular challenge based on … what turned out to be an improper evidentiary showing.”
Moreover, Justice Kavanaugh (who was one of the concurrences in Milligan) suggested that we might have reached “the end point” on such race-based districting: “[T]his Court’s cases in a variety of contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades in some cases, but … they should not be indefinite and should have a[n] end point.”
Now, back to the ADA analogy.
The disabled face permanent and ongoing physical disabilities in accessing buildings and spaces. While Jackson was stressing that intent does not matter when it comes to discrimination against the disabled, the question of the other justices is whether the use of race-based districts will continue indefinitely. The ADA is permanent because the disabilities are permanent. The analogy plays into the very point of justices like Kavanaugh on whether race-based districting would continue ad infinitum.
If the oral argument is a reflection of the eventual votes of the justices, there now seems to be a working majority of justices willing to bring “an end point” to race-based districting. The result would have tremendous legal and political impact.
Legally, one of the most litigated areas of elections would be largely curtailed. The Voting Rights Act would still be used to prevent measures to inhibit voting and to protect the right to vote for every citizen. However, the constant districting controversies over guaranteeing majority black districts would come to an end.
The move would also be a major additional move of the Roberts court to eliminate the use of race-based classifications in society from college admissions to election districting. In a 2007 case, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that position most succinctly by declaring that the “way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Politically, any loss of such gerrymandering on the basis of race could impact the Democrats who hold the vast majority of these districts.
Of course, the Court could again fracture as it did in Milligan on the rationale for any opinion. What was notable about the oral argument is that there appeared to be at least five justices considering a threshold rejection of race-based districting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The requirement for majority minority congressional districts was ALWAYS unconstitutional and more important WRONG.
It is actually likely that eliminating this race based gerrymandering will benefit democrats. Creating Majority minority districts concentrates the voting power of democrats in ONE district which autmatically difuses it in others.
AS to the ADA – that NEVER should have been allowed.
I am personally absolutely FOR accomdating people with handicapps. BUT the Free market ALWAYS does those kind of things best. It tends to lag behind what Politicians and activists want. But all the REAL accomplishments in improving our world have come from free people in free markets NOT Government regulation.
All regulation does is make things more expensive WITHOUT addressing what people really need. Or what is feasible.
One of the things most people fail to grasp about free markets is that economics is ALWAYS at the margins – that is ALWAYS where things happen. To they extent those on the left – or even older liberals think about free markets and capitalim they ALWAYS think about it as about the CORE – the majority. There are court decisions written about how many companies are needed to make cornflakes most cost effectively – yet if you go through the cereal aisle of any grocery you learn QUICKLY that Free markets absolutely deliver the basic items – Corn Flakes as cheap as possible through mass production, and QUICKLY after that seek to find ways to DIFFERENTIATE – to produce a product that appeals to some other THAN THE MAJORITY – TO WORK at the margins.
We forget that Jim Crow laws exist because the south could not get businesses to discriminate enough against blacks.
Underserved groups have a name in the free market, that name is OPORTUNITY.
If you want to make money if you want customers for life – find the people who got screwed by someone else.
I drive to a store today and there is a whole block of handicapped parking spaces – and now a cottage industry of doctors handing out handicapped permits – because we demanded more parking spaces than there were handicaped people.
For years most handicapped spaces were empty. Now they have almost become senior citizens parking spaces.
Almost anyone over 55 can get a handicapped plaquard.
But next to the handicapped spaces we now have pregnant mother spaces, veterans spaces, Family spaces.
Again businesses seeking to gain a market by appealing to the MARGINS.
Because it is ALWAYS at the margins that the economy ACTUALLY moves, changes, develops,
that is where progress and advancement occurs.
If one applies the ADA to determination of race-based voting districts, one implies that individuals in the specified race(s) are handicapped. So what is the handicap here? Interestingly, two of the more vocal people implying that African-Americans have special needs are Justice Jackson Brown, in this instance, and Jasmine Crockett, requesting reparations. Both of these women are attorneys. So, what is their handicap?
In related news Black American Barrack Obama endorses White American Spanberger against Black American Wisome-Sears.
Hey wait a minute, I thought it was important for Black Americans to vote for Black people????
As I stated above, this is like Emily’s List, an organization created to promote female candidates often endorsing male liberals over conservative females.
Race and gender only matter to liberals when it helps their agenda.
Bobby – Sears has the support of conservative Republicans, including millions of whites, as does Byron Donalds for FL governor, and as did Larry Elder in CA. The liars in this comment section suggest Republicans and conservatives only support whites.
Make districts contiguous, compact, and equal population. Problem solved. There will be some minority-majority districts around cities. But it won’t have been intentionally designed around race. The public will have confidence that only neutral criteria were applied.
Under the above scheme, the contiguity and equal-population of the districts are easy to prove. The dispute will be around compactness. A given map can be proved unlawful if someone comes up with a map with districts that are more compact than the current one and still meets the contiguity and equal-population metrics.
Why if it’s more compact?
Three politically-neutral and racially-neutral metrics. Contiguous, equal-population, and as compact as reasonably possible (given that states have borders that are not always straight lines). A fourth could be: split as few political subdivisions as possible. These are politically neutral metrics that can be measured mathematically.
Would a longitude or latitude slice work yielding straight borders? The military functions on coordinates?
If it were not for the requirement of roughly equal populations in each district. That requirement is the legacy of the one-man-one-vote principle cooked up by Scotus in the 1960s, and it is not likely to be overturned.
Take my wife, … please. Draw a straight line through our bedroom.
Perhaps under-assimilated, non-integrated, culturally, linguistically, and racially distinct minorities (both historic, and all the new ones too) are to be weighted and retain legal and political advantages as cohesive-ish “communities” within the greater overall social-political-legal framework of the USA as determined in VRA and as voiced by Justice Jackson? Tying this to geographical residence and census-driven data in order to configure legitimate contiguous US Congressional Districts or state House and Senate Districts is evidently in need of modernizing in the post-CoVid, Internet, coming AI-dominated age. The debate is worth undertaking despite erupting the emotional rage over power-shifting of the cemented safe-seats of the past 3 generations. Incumbency and 2 party-strangleholds are other issues causing mostly static representation within communities. The sales job is always to appeal to the masses just ahead of elections while ensuring the real $$$ and power are not disrupted to the influential and that abusive outright spoils and corruption is contained along the way.
Privileging one voter necessarily de-privileges another voter. Representative democracy begins with voters choosing their government. Despite its long history, gerrymandering has always permitted the politicians to choose their voters. A retreat from race-based voting would be a good beginning. The goal, though, should be to design every voting district to be as competitive as possible. Instead of designing districts to be safe for incumbents, they should be designed to empower voters.
The way to ensure Tokenisha’s intent is for the SCt to require that under the voting rights act political districts must be set up so that all blacks are in one district, no matter how bizarre that district looks. That’s the only way to ensure that the mentally disabled identified by their blackness can get their proper representatives. There is a reason Sheila Jackson Lee was elected and re-elected–she was smarter than the mentally disabled blacks (redundant per Tokenisha) in her district.
This post is really, really friggin’ stupid. Even 3rd graders know to reference their stupid nicknames to the person they’re insulting.
(It’s also probably worth pointing out that nobody over the age of 2 digits either uses, nor is insulted by, stupid insulting nicknames.)
Go sit in the corner and think about what you have done.
No, turn around and face the wall!
No talking, and I’ll tell you when you can come out.
Sheesh. Kids these days.
–Shannon
did you break out the champagne?
Has anyone considered that black people are individuals who have freedom to think and vote however they individually choose?
If I understand the “logic” here correctly, the unspoken warrant in the arguments to uphold Section 2 is that black folks only want to elect other black folks, so denying them that opportunity is racial discrimination.
I’m going to assume I don’t have to explain the fallacy here. I do wonder why nobody is pointing this out though.
The logic is that many white people only want to elect white people and that overturning the VRA can eliminate the ability of Black voters to have any option for a Black candidate if they want one. Racial discrimination against Black people is the default in many states. Electing President Obama clearly didn’t signal an end to all racial discrimination.
Perhaps Republicans should find ways to appeal to Black voters rather than taking away their representation by diluting their votes.
We did, Trump. That’s why blacks are deserting the plantation in droves. They finally realized the lies the dems have been telling them for decades.
The logic is that many white people only want to elect white people
Like all the whites voting for Winsome Sears, Byron Donalds, and who voted for Larry Elder? Yeah all three of those candidates look just sooooo white to me (/sarc).
The old leftist lies are so passé. Low-IQ commenters have not caught up with the times.
“Racial discrimination against Black people is the default in many states. Electing President Obama clearly didn’t signal an end to all racial discrimination.”
THERE IT IS!!!! IT’S OFFICIAL!!! America is systemically racist!
The mulatto Obama made that claim right after renouncing his life of rich white privilege in order to get elected by a majority of white voters after running for office as a po’ black chil’ from da hood! Imagine a systemically white racist country overwhelmingly voting for a mocha colored po’ black chil’ from the Democrats ghetto poverty plantations!
“Perhaps Republicans should find ways to appeal to Black voters rather than taking away their representation by diluting their votes.”
Perhaps Democrat race baiters should quit BullShyting themselves and ask why black Americans are breaking out from their black poverty plantations and increasingly voting for Republicans.
Rather than buying into evil Democrat race baiting – which almost always comes from a white Democrat Kluxxer, not another black American.
Black babies are twice as likely to survive with a black doctor, said Ketanji. And so they go on voting that way.
“However, the constant districting controversies over guaranteeing majority black districts would come to an end.”
That is the point. It’s about ensuring Republican dominance where Republican majorities in state legislatures can control voter outcomes more cleanly using race. Conservative Justices are making the argument that racism is not infinite therefore creating districts based on race is no longer necessary.
Never mind that even now Republicans who bristle at the notion that they are racists and bigots still seem to be racists and bigots thanks to a whole bunch of young Republican leaders who were exposed being a bunch of racists and bigots. It’s still there and what they say in private supports the general assumption that they are. Maybe racism and bigotry are a cultural norm fostered among most Republicans. It may be infinite after all.
Stupid as always george.
Maybe racism and bigotry are a cultural norm fostered among most Republicans. It may be infinite after all.
_______________________________
Who created the KKK and Jim Crow…. Sure wasn’t the GOP.
Another big lie by you
In the 1950s to 1960s the Southern Democrats who created the KKK and Jim Crow split off to become the Dixiecrats because the Northern Democrats were pushing for social reforms. As the Democratic party became more solidly progressive of civil rights the Dixiecrats gave up and switched to the Republican party to preserve racism. The transition to accepting racists into the Republican party was essentially completed under Ronald Reagan.
^ The old Republicans-are-racist canard ^
California repubs might want partisan reps at 40% currently yugely underrepresented. Not sure if they’re all white though to use the racist argument of disability. Worth a try ?
Hate is a partisan issue. Power is partisan. Money is power. Just use a grid by longitude and latitude. I think Ohio does? Idk
Ano
The transition to accepting racists into the Republican party was essentially completed under Ronald Reagan.
__________________________
Now it you had any “hard” proof
Lighteredknot says; so the 1959 2010 Robert Byrd et als switched to Repub? You need to close that pie hole.
ATS – another false narrative.
Democrat Robert Byrd was one of the most powerful senators serving well into the 21st century and he was a Grand Dragon in the KKK.
With very few exceptions Racist Southern democrats remained Democrats. DixieCrats did not become Republicans – they returned to the democratic party where they came from.
The republican legislators, and govenors that replaced democrats and dixicrats in the south were significantly LESS racist than the democrats they ran against.
In 2008 Political Demographer Ruy Tiexiera announced that Demographics is destiny and the GOP was effectively Dead, that in a decade or so a country moving toward minority majority would give Democrats permanent power. Yet here we are almost 20 years later with Ruy Tiexiera telling Democrats THEY are in danger of becoming an elitist white party.
Republicans are losing ground among wealthy whites – particularly women.
Neo-Cons are returning to the democratic party.
But in virtually all other demographic groups republicans are making large gains.
Married Women vote republican. Women with children vote republican.
The majority of minorities do not YET vote republicans – but that is where the trends are heading. Working class voters vote republican.
Basically all of what used to be the democratic base – votes republican today.
With a few exceptions – republicans have NOT changed their values over the past 75 years – Democrats have. Democrats have become more racist.
“As the Democratic party became more solidly progressive of civil rights the Dixiecrats gave up and switched to the Republican party to preserve racism.”
Ah yes… that tired old Democrat Kluxxer lie. Their main problem with that lie is that they can’t supply the names of the Democrats kluxxers who supposedly switched parties. If they could, they’d name them – but this is just a cut ‘n paste lie
We do know that one virulent Kluxxer never left the Kluxxer Democrats – two actually. Joe Biden, who told the world he didn’t want his son Hunter going to school with little black jungle bunnies. And of course Joe Biden’s mentor as a new politician, Senator/Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd.
As for the Dixicrat Kluxxers, after their defeat that year, it made no sense for them to join with the Republican Party, which is the party of civil rights achievements. They returned to the Democrat party to preserve Democrat racism and rejoined others such as George Wallace, Orval Faubus, Lester Maddox, and Ross Barnett.
Of the 26 known Dixiecrats (5 governors and 21 senators) only three ever became Republicans: Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and Mills E. Godwind, Jr. The segregationists in the Senate, on the other hand, would return to their party and fight against the Civil Rights acts of 1957, 1960 and 1964.
Lead by none other than Senator/Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd, Bribery Biden’s bestie.
Identify laws being passed that benefit minority groups only. What is it Asians want or need that everyone else doesn’t need or whites or blacks etc. If you can identify anything then laws are intruding into personal liberty or are unconstitutional.
Rabble:
Oh noes, a few identified Republicans said things about Hitler oh noes! Oh noes, only 217 mentions of racism in years-long message chains!
Come off it, George. Why don’t you show us the millions of times your *ilk* called everyone they didn’t agree with, and ultimately wished death upon, as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot?
And what of your current edgy sibling Jay Jones? Should we discount everything he said about actually wanting to kill a man and his kids over political disagreement, merely because a private message chat had something deemed racist?
And, the timing is interesting, too. The chat gets “leaked” the day of the late Charlie Kirk’s birthday, the same day the President gives him a posthumous medal? Tell me it wasn’t planned without telling me it wasn’t planned.
X
You use the word “racist” almost every 3rd word in your post, you defame hundreds of millions of people as racist – but you provide no evidence that any of those you accuse of racism are in fact racist.
Republicans – as individuals and as a party are trying to end
110 republicans voted for the VRA, 20 voted against it, and 10 did not vote.
about 20% of Republicans voted against the VRA.
Almost 40% of democrats did. Almost as many democrats either did not vote or voted against the VRA as Republicans voted for it.
Wikipedia claims that the VRA was the most effective peice of civil rights legislation ever.
Yet almost everything it is credited with accomplishing – was accomplished by Supreme court decisions often more than a decade earlier. poll taxes had been eliminated years early, all impediments to blacks voting were abolished by the courts or constitutional amendment.
The sentiments behind the VRA – like most leftist legislation were good. But like leftists everywhere, they confuse their sense of doing something – with ACTUAL accompishment.
The VRA did not accomplish anything – except being unconstitutional from the start.
The constitution makes most election law the responsibility of states – giving congress – not the executive – certainly not the DOJ veto power.
We have had 74 years of trying to fix racial discrimination by racially discriminating.
The good news is that we live in the least racist country in its least racist moment in time.
But the VRA and affirmative action or reverse discrimination accomplished none of that.
If anything reverse discrimination created racial animus where there was none before.
This was ALWAYS a mistake. It is long past time to end it.
Racism has not vanished – it never will. all some many people will always be more comfortable arround those who are more like them – that is just human nature.
But real consequential discrimination against blacks is almost non-existant today.
I would further note that just as the VRA had 80% of republicans voting for it,
The infamous southern racism, Jim Crowe, Cross Burnings, Church Burnings, lynchings were all done by Democrats – exclusively.
The first blacks in congress were republicans – in 1870.
Before 1970 only 1 black elected to congress was a democrat and he was from Illinois.
Since the VRA passed about 100 blacks have been elected to the house of representatives.
Only About 1/4 of those came from the south.
The first republicans since reconstruction were elected in the south in the early 1990’s But it was not until 2016 that Republicans dominated the south and even now they do not dominate the south in the way democrats did for over 100 years.
If you are using the south as an example of racism – you are condemning democrats not republicans.
If Republicans today are more racist than ever – why is it that nearly every minority has been shifting republican through the 21st century. Hispanic voters are close to majority republican and certainly will flip in a few more cycles. Blacks have gone from voting 3% for republicans to 20, 30, even 40 % in some places. Some of he most outspoken black voices in congress are republican.
The fact is that Republicans have embraced MLK’s dream that we should be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. While it is democrats that INCREASINGLY judge people by their race, their sex, their religion their sexual orientation.
Identity politics is exclusively a democrat domain. It is democrats that have no interest in a persons character.
The political party witht he discrimination problem is democrats.
“It’s about ensuring Republican dominance where Republican majorities in state legislatures can control voter outcomes more cleanly using race.” Quite unlike what is happening in Democrat controlled states like California and Illinois of course. Or Rhode Island, where they’ve successfully gerrymandered every single Republican seat out of existence.
GeorgeX appears to have it as his mission to lie often and openly enough to make up for the absence of the other Three Democrat Commie Stooges, Gigi and Denis McLiar.
Without lies, race baiting, racism and bigotry, GeorgeX would have nothing but two brain cells rattling around in his empty head like two BBs in a railway boxcare, with each having the other in a head lock.
I sometimes wonder and worry if GeorgeX depends on people responding to his lies as the only means he has to manage to have an orgasm?
Sunset clauses should be mandatory for every legislative and executive act. If/Then. Is that too much to ask?
It’s time to end this discrimination. I have been alive since before Brown vs Bd of Education and was there to see schools integrated and Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed and instigated. It has accomplished its purpose. It was a means to end the discrimination but now it’s being used as a crutch to bludgeon the rest of us. Time to end. Your life is in your hands. Deal with it. Sometimes you get a bad hand and have to make the best of the bad. Sometimes it makes you stronger. But in lies in your lap. Make friends, study, network, work hard, be nice to people but not a doormat, give back from what you achieve. Watch people who are successful and emulate them.
Enough of this protected people. Life is tough and hard but the rewards can be incredible. No guarantees even if you do the best job. Then you just have to work harder. I have noticed that the people who succeed in my profession basically had the same attitude that I had and they can from all sorts of races and ethnicities but basically the same commitment to work.
It seemed quite color blind.
Well said GEB. Greg
GEB,
If the voting rights act has accomplished its purpose then there is no need to repeal or override the voting rights act as it can have no effect at all in an integrated society. No one is being bludgeoned by the VRA. It’s an impediment to racial discrimination, so if there is no racial discrimination it is not an impediment. On the other hand, if it is seen as an impediment, then there is still racial discrimination.
I recall in the South the attitude was that the Black neighbor was a nice guy, but Black people, as a group, were garbage; that in the collective Black people should have no rights. That seems to continue to be the attitude.
You said, “I recall in the South the attitude was that the Black neighbor was a nice guy, but Black people, as a group, were garbage; that in the collective Black people should have no rights. ”
Close, but then you added the phrase, “that in the collective Black people should have no rights. ”
That might have been an accurate description in 1965 of the Southern mindset, but it is now 2025. Sixty years later. I think we have morphed beyond that.
Floyd, you can think that, but the attack on the VRA says different. The Black vote will be diluted and therefore eliminated.
What is “the black vote” you speak of? Are you saying that blacks all vote the same? For the same reasons?
Anonymous 11:18AM- you assume wrongly. If you had lived there you would know it was far more subtle and diverse and varied greatly individual to individual and from area to area.
You really have a very limited perspective on people of all groups and ethnicities.
GEB, I tried to write up what everyone of 120 Million people in that area thought in extreme detail, but WordPress would not accept the 120 Terrabyte document. Sorry that it was not to your liking but I can tell that you support the suppression of rights on a racial basis due to your limited perspective.
On display, the indefinite use of race: Brown/Jackson.
Um…. so says a white supremacist.
Nope… She used race in her comment. Nice try
*. Construct actual districts of mono race or color as segregation. Then pass a law that candidates can only be of another race. The candidates needn’t live in district. In that way blacks will be forced into voting for a white candidate.
There is a difference between the intent-effect issue with the ADA versus the same issue in race-based lawmaking. Yes, the affected person, that is, the minority person and the disabled person, is unable to change their race or, for this example, their disability, and so both are considered permanent for legal purposes. However, the “remedies” themselves can change, and they do not need to be permanent.
For example, physical barriers, such as entrances to government buildings, can be modified to make entry easier for people with disabilities. Racial attitudes can change over time as a result of race-based remedies, such as §2 of the Voting Rights Act. Six decades and two to three generations of Americans have come into being since the Voting Rights Act was enacted. The America of today is different from the America of 1965.
If remedial legislation has meaning, there should be a point at which we can reasonably agree that the remedy has solved the problem it was intended to address. Thus, the job of the Court, it seems, is to determine whether that time has been reached. A remedy for a curable condition differs in duration from one intended to address a permanent condition.
I think the sizable growth in the past decade among minorities who favor conservative over progressive politics suggests that many, if not most, of the conditions giving rise to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 no longer need or deserve unequal or special treatment. I think that the Court will recognize the same thing and value the progress made by all of our people in business, industry, and government since the Voting Rights Act was enacted into law. It has proven to be the perfect remedy for the condition as it existed in 1965, and now, as racial politics fades from our national governance, it may be time to retire the practice and return to electing people to office on the “content of their character,” as some great person once said.
What I thought fascinating was the unrebutted comment that white Democrats won’t vote for black Democrat candidates.
Rasce-based politics presumes this but I’m not so sure it’s an accurate description no more than saying, for example, that conservatives would not vote for a black candidate. These are mid 20th century assumptions that simply no longer are viable. Do they still exist? Yes, just like a few people still smoke and like rock n roll. Transitions are slow but sure.
“I’m not so sure it’s an accurate description no more than saying, for example, that conservatives would not vote for a black candidate.”
I am a libertarian who frequently votes for the most conservative candidate in a contest, and I would gladly vote (or have voted) for the likes of Thomas Sowell, or the late Ken Hamblin, possibly Candice Owens, if nominally qualified for the position sought. I suspect that my preferences in that regard are more typical than not of present day conservatives.
If content of character was the main decision driver, Trump, the multiple time breaker of marital vows, the one who boasted about committing sexual assault, a person who creates business deals to swindle others, would not have been elected. He is, by most any measure, a human atrocity.
The VRA is an impediment to racial discrimination by whites against Blacks. If discrimination is no more than the VRA is no longer an impediment and does not need to be repealed as it no longer does anything. There are many laws in similar positions to that – having no effect. No one sues to have them repealed. The laws that are challenged are those which have an effect; there must still be racial discrimination and those who are prevented from extending it to voting are suing to extend racial discrimination to voting once again.
I don’t know what exactly angers you, but your anger seems so evident. Trump is indeed a sinner, as we all are, and I would presume you would agree. Fly-specking is a waste of time. Let’s rejoice that he has vanquished the evil doers among us and in the process has won over many of those who, like you, are likely to become his converts. For sure, your nihilistic TDS will take you nowhere except to despair and tragic resentment.
The VRA is not meant to solve “discrimination,” but rather disadvantages that prevent voting or political representation among black citizens. Since those obstacles no longer exist, the VRA has become a way of increasing the partisan advantage for Democrats (since black’s continue to vote as bloc voters). That partisan advantage should be done away with.
“If content of character was the main decision driver, Trump, the multiple time breaker of marital vows, the one who boasted about committing sexual assault, a person who creates business deals to swindle others, would not have been elected. He is, by most any measure, a human atrocity.”
Oh Jeez! Tell everybody why you repeatedly voted for President Daddy-Daughter Inappropriate Incest Showers, who went from screwing the kids babysitter to raping a teenage intern, to serial rape of his teenage daughter in the shower. And before Trump was there to be your excuse for your voting record. You self-identifying as a tremendous judge of content of character, of course.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE… don’t change a single thing in how you push your election strategy out on normal Americans leading up to elections. Don’t change a thing!!!!
Prof Turley’s columns are superb in their clarity and conciseness making these highly technical issues of law understandable to us non-lawyers
Like so many other laws and institutions the Dem left has created a weapon of the VRA to give itself an electoral advantage. There has been a project initiated by Obama’s self described wingman and former AG, Eric Holder to flip state Supreme Courts to install Dem activist judges. When successful a lawsuit is brought by an activist organization alleging discrimination under the VRA to challenge congressional district maps on the basis of race. Only one race is considered to be disadvantaged of course. The foregone ruling in such suits is that the number of congressional districts should be apportioned based on the percentage of blacks the state’s population. No other race is considered. An alternative formulation based on race would be that the racial makeup of individual districts reflect the racial makeup of the state as a whole. Of course that would not yield the desired result. When you advantage one group over all others you necessarily do so to the detriment of all others. Our country would have long ago moved beyond race if the Democrat Party would stop using it a political weapon for their own advantage.
So being black is a disability. Right.
Per our newest Supreme.
So says the local uneducated redneck.
I stated a fact.. What do you have?
If Black Americans voted 100% Republican the Republicans would be defending the VRA tooth and nail. Since the Black voters remain largely segregated they are subject to an essentially racist attack on their voting rights.
Several of the justices appeared sympathetic to the US position that Gingles needed to be clarified to allow for race-neutral criteria, including incumbent protection and partisan advantage, to prevail over racial sorting to create minority majority districts. They also seemed sympathetic to refining the block voting tests to distinguish partisan from racial voting. The failure to do the latter is why democrats want to preserve racial gerrymandering in favour of blacks — this maximises opportunities for democrats to win, because a much higher percentage of black voters support democrats than republicans.
I think it highly likely that, overwhelmingly, black democrats would vote for a white democrat over a black republican, white democrats would vote for a black democrat over a white republican, black republicans would vote for a white republican over a black democrat and white republicans would vote for a black republican over a white democrat, assuming relatively equal candidates in terms of quality.
If this is so, then polarisation is partisan not racial, and the VRA is a vehicle for manipulating districting to favour democrats, because most blacks are democrats. The revision of the Gingles factors along the lines proposed by the US would help end this.
One way to back up a segment of your argument is to point out that Emily’s List, a group formed to elect FEMALE candidates often supports liberal men over conservative women. It isn’t gender (race) it is just another way for liberals (Democrats) to game the system.
It’s gaming the system by using blacks as a positive partisan vote. It’s finished. Perhaps States can move to longitude and latitude in constructing grid population maps now presuming the government limits its intrusions into lives by common needs and interests aka consensus.
ANY minority can claim disadvantage aka disability in outcomes. American communists are disabled by the minority definition. Being Islamic is a disability etc.
It’s block voting aka partisan voting in congress rendering congress bloated and functionally useless requiring no work nor thinking in its effect. We may as well decrease the size of reps as 500 reps is merely redundancy. I’m for 2 reps per State, one repub and one dem. In that way all votes will hinge on 5 nonpartisan votes but citizens will save money. Paying these well intentioned dolts would end. .
The distribution of Black voters is not uniform so they are a target of racial discrimination by districting. If the Republicans want Black voters to favor Republican candidates, the Republicans can change their policies to become more favorable to Black voters. Clearly the Republicans aren’t doing that; their policies are often racist, driving Black voters away from the Republican party. They look to re-establish the case where Black voters have no representation, but white voters steal the benefit of the Black voters being counted in the census by 100% now rather than the 60% in the initial US Constitution.
“If the Republicans want Black voters to favor Republican candidates, the Republicans can change their policies to become more favorable to Black voters.”
Earth to the Democrat Borg: Trump has twice doubled the most votes received from Black Americans since Eisenhower. That looks like black voters increasingly deserting Democrats and favoring Republicans. Under Trump, no less.
Now: if Bolshevik Birthing Boyz don’t want to continue watching black Americans increasingly moving off their poverty plantations to increasingly vote Republican, those abusive communists can quite treating black Americans as dumb Darkies and do something more than engage in race baiting and offering welfare.
Donald Trump Won More Black Voters Than Any Republican in 48 Years
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-black-voters-gains-results-1982939
President-elect Donald Trump won more Black voters than any Republican candidate was able to do in nearly fifty years. The shift among Black voters came from younger men. In Wisconsin, for example, Trump’s support among that group more than doubled.
Nationally, he roughly doubled his support among Black men under 45 compared to 2020, with about 3 in 10 in this age group voting for him. In total, 21 percent of Black men voted for Trump, which was 2 percent more than in 2020. When it came to Hispanic voters, Trump showed the best results for a Republican candidate in over 52 years.
Democrat Marxist Useless Idiots are in a death spiral and the intend to lie their way all the way to the moment they thunder in and hit the ground.
No better words that’s those of CJ Roberts “the best way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the bases of race”……
If a white person demanded to be represented only by white people, or a man demanded only to be represented by a male, I suspect justices like Ketanji Brown Jackson would object. Yet, she seems fine assuming that black people have the right to expect–even demand–to be represented only by people of their same ethnicity. It’s stunningly racist.
Truly, but you are expecting this DEI hire to think clearly…. It can’t
Welcome to Bosnia!
“However, the constant districting controversies over guaranteeing majority black districts would come to an end.”
As it should. The constant redistricting based on race is an outmoded relic of the past.
OT
Have a lovely day everyone.
b.i.g.,
The demand is to be represented by someone who supports their interests, and not to have their interests ignored because of intentional dilution, regardless of race.
Why take an urban district and divide it into tiny slivers among rural district populations? The answer it to eliminate effective representation for the urban dwellers.
Because of historical pressures by conservative racists using torches, dogs, guns, and nooses, along with police to enforce laws about which bathrooms could be used, which seats on busses could be occupied, which seats at lunch counters could be rested upon, in many places the Black population became concentrated in urban centers for their own safety.
Because of red lining and racist real estate practices, when the suburbs began to expand the Black population was prohibited from expanding with it for a very long time.
As long as laws are required to provide equal consideration for any aspect of life, there remains the need to keep similar laws for equal consideration of voting rights.
IOW, just because whites in America got a 200 year head start, it’s not now equal for Blacks just because the leg irons were removed a couple decades ago and they are free to catch up.
I’ll race you in the mile, but I’ll take a 7/8 mile head start. Seems fair? If you don’t win, you don’t get to vote. We can run the same race with me getting the same head start forever and I guarantee you that without a vote, you can’t alter the rules of the race.
“Because of historical pressures by conservative racists using torches, dogs, guns, and nooses, along with police to enforce laws about which bathrooms…”
First time I’ve seen a Democrat race baiter and racist try to claim that the Democrat Kluxxers like Robert Byrd and Joe Biden were actually racist and conservative Republican racists at that.
Now there’s some hard core Democrat black racism and race baiting, right there.
Is that you Louis Farrakhan? Reverend Jeremiah Wright? Al Sharpton?