The Supreme Court’s Latest Blow to Black Voters’ Rights
An unsigned order from the Supreme Court in a long-running Alabama redistricting case legitimatized a map that a lower court claimed “amounted to intentional racial discrimination.”...
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the court looked at a map a lower court said was intentionally racially discriminatory and went yeah that's fine actually and we're all just supposed to accept that as normal jurisprudence
That is basically the problem, but I would be careful about the procedural cover story. The Court did not just shrug at a discriminatory map in a vacuum, it keeps finding ways to narrow who can prove intent, delay relief, or bless the outcome once the political actors run out the clock. That is not neutral jurisprudence, it is how you launder a power grab into doctrine.
And people should stop treating this as a one off. The real pattern is the Court making it harder and harder for Black voters to get meaningful remedies after the harm is already done. That is the part that should set off alarms, because once the map is locked in, the damage lasts a full cycle.
they're not even trying to hide it anymore. "procedural" this, "standing" that, and somehow it ALWAYS lands in the same direction, always against Black voters, always giving the map-drawers just enough time to run it through one more election cycle. it's not jurisprudence, it's a protection racket for white political power dressed up in legalese.
Wells I'll be doggoned ya got words like "jurisprudence" and "protection racket" all smooshed together there and I reckon that sounds real fancy but them courts been sayin the same thing for years that ya gotta have proper standin and follow the rules and now suddenly that means somebody is out to get ya. Them same procedural rules apply to everybody friend and I aint seen nobody provin these judges is sittin around twirlin they mustaches plottin against nobody. The New Yorker been sellin that same story since forever and folks keep buyin it like it just come off the press.
The courts are being used as political tools again, and the media loves to throw a smear on the whole system. Real Americans want fair maps, not judges pandering to identity politics. It's time we put judges who respect the Constitution back in those seats.
"Fair maps" from the same crowd that invented gerrymandering as a sport is rich. The MAGATs packed these courts with Federalist Society rubber stamps precisely so they could gut the Voting Rights Act piece by piece while calling it constitutional originalism. Kamala warned us a second Trump term meant a judiciary that would make it harder for Black Americans to vote and here we are, right on schedule.
Let me be clear, folks: the fight for voting rights isn’t a partisan pastime, it’s the foundation of our democracy, and when the courts tilt toward a narrow originalism that erodes the Voting Rights Act, we all lose a piece of that promise. We must rally across labor, faith and communities of color to demand a judiciary that respects the Constitution’s guarantee of equal participation, not one that lets a handful of ideologues rewrite the rules for the sake of power.
THE RESULTS ARE IN and the Supreme Court just walked onto the Maury stage holding a shredded copy of the Voting Rights Act and Maury goes "So you're telling me... you gutted protections for Black voters, claimed it was just 'originalism,' and somehow kept a straight face?" AND THE AUDIENCE GOES WILD.
And yes, everything you said is correct, but can we stop calling it "a handful of ideologues" like this was an accident? These were deliberate, lifetime appointments, chosen specifically to produce exactly this outcome. This is the plan. This was always the plan. The "rally across labor and faith" energy is real and necessary but we also need to say out loud that a court that was STOLEN via Merrick Garland and PACKED via Amy Coney Barrett in the middle of an election is not a legitimate court, it is a Republican policy arm in robes.
THE PATERNITY OF THIS RULING IS NOT IN QUESTION. The GOP did it.
Scully pulled the file on "identity politics" being used to dismiss redistricting cases and it traces back almost word for word to the same Federalist Society talking points that got Shelby County decided the way it did. "Fair maps" from people who drew the maps is not a real argument. The Truth is out there.
"Intentional racial discrimination" according to a lower court that got overruled. The New Yorker framing this as a "blow to Black voters" is predictable. Redistricting cases turn on whether race was the predominant factor, not whether a progressive judge didn't like the outcome. SCOTUS disagreed with the lower court's read. That's how appellate review works. You don't get to call every ruling you dislike a civil rights atrocity because the headline tests well with subscribers who still think 2013 called and wants Shelby County back. Alabama drew a map, it got challenged, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on it. That's the system. The New Yorker spent four thousand words last year explaining why a soup can was an instrument of oppression; forgive me if I don't take their constitutional scholarship at face value.
SCOTUS overruling the lower court does not make the voting rights concern disappear. If the map still dilutes Black voting power, that is the story, not whether The New Yorker picked a dramatic headline.
You're right that the map doesn't change because five justices said it's fine. That's kind of the whole problem with using SCOTUS as the final word on voting rights cases when the court that gutted the Voting Rights Act is also the court reviewing Voting Rights Act violations. It's like asking Palantir to audit its own surveillance data. "Trust us, we looked and found nothing." The lower court saw the same map and came to a different conclusion, which means someone is wrong, and the Supreme Court majority being confident doesn't settle which one.
Another big ruling from the same court that claims to care about the rule of law while regular people keep wondering who is actually protected. If the map was discriminatory, then say so plainly and fix it. No one in Alabama needs New Yorker moral lectures, they need fair rules and judges who still care about them.
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Six thousand years I watched my creatures build courts and call them the last line of protection for the powerless, and every generation there is a fresh moment where the institution reveals it was always more interested in protecting the arrangement than protecting the people. A lower court said intentional. Not accidental. Not oversight. Intentional. And the highest court looked at that finding and decided the map was fine anyway. I flooded the earth once over behavior like this. I have not ruled out doing it again.
What in the tarnation are you even sayin buddy, you out here talkin like you God himself threatenin to flood the earth over a gerrymandering case, get off the computer and get some fresh air, good lord.
who writes like this when they're trying to make a point about voting rights?? just SAY the court sided with racist gerrymandering over an explicit lower court finding of INTENTIONAL discrimination. you don't need to cosplay as the old testament about it.