Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued a lengthy, critical dissent in the high court’s ruling that struck down Alabama’s electoral map for congressional elections.
In a 5–4 ruling (pdf) last week, the court found that a map drafted by state Republican lawmakers violated the provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA) that mandates that states not racially gerrymander districts. The ruling requires the state to adopt a different map before the 2024 elections, which may benefit House Democrats.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who were appointed by Republican presidents, joined members of the Supreme Court who were appointed by Democratic presidents in the ruling. Thomas was among four other justices who were appointed by Republicans to disagree with the ruling.
Writing in his dissent, Thomas argued that the Supreme Court’s majority ruling that a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that bans gerrymandering based on race is “nothing more than a racial entitlement to roughly proportional control of elective offices—limited only by feasibility—wherever different racial groups consistently prefer different candidates.”
Meanwhile, he added, the Voting Rights Act doesn’t mandate that Alabama “intentionally redraw its longstanding congressional districts so that black voters can control a number of seats roughly proportional to the black share of the State’s population.”
“At the outset, I would resolve these cases in a way that would not require the Federal Judiciary to decide the correct racial apportionment of Alabama’s congressional seats,” Thomas further stated.
“The majority goes to great lengths … to fossilize all of the worst aspects of our long-deplorable vote-dilution jurisprudence,” Thomas also wrote, adding that “it virtually ignores Alabama’s primary argument—that, whatever the benchmark is, it must be race neutral—choosing, instead, to quixotically joust with an imaginary adversary.”
The Majority Ruling
Writing for the majority, Roberts argued that the Supreme Court disagreed with Alabama lawyers’ position on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
“We are content to reject Alabama’s invitation to change existing law,” the chief justice wrote. “We find Alabama’s new approach to [Section] 2 compelling neither in theory nor in practice. We accordingly decline to recast our [Section] 2 case law as Alabama requests.”
He also noted that there are concerns about Section 2 that “may impermissibly elevate race in the allocation of political power within the States,” adding that “racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters.”
“Under the Court’s precedents, a district is not equally open 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,” Roberts wrote.
Kavanaugh wrote that a proceeding case helped determine that Alabama’s arguments were incorrect.
“But as this court has long recognized—and as all Members of this Court today agree—the text of [Section] 2 establishes an effects test, not an intent test,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And the effects test … requires certain circumstances that courts account for the race of voters so as to prevent the cracking or packing—whether intentional or not—of large and geographically compact minority populations.”
Evan Milligan, a black voter and the lead plaintiff in the case, said the ruling was a victory for “democracy” and African-Americans. “We are grateful that the Supreme Court upheld what we knew to be true: that everyone deserves to have their vote matter and their voice heard. Today is a win for democracy and freedom not just in Alabama but across the United States,” Milligan said in a statement.
Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl wrote in a statement that state lawmakers would comply with the ruling. “Regardless of our disagreement with the Court’s decision, we are confident the Alabama Legislature will redraw district lines that ensure the people of Alabama are represented by members who share their beliefs, while following the requirements of applicable law,” Wahl said.
Steve Marshall, the state’s attorney general, said he expects to continue defending the challenged map in federal court, including at a full trial. “Although the majority’s decision is disappointing, this case is not over,” Marshall said in a statement.
Separately, the Supreme Court in the fall will hear South Carolina’s appeal of a lower-court ruling that found Republican lawmakers allegedly stripped black voters from a district to make it safer for a Republican candidate. That case also could lead to a redrawn map in South Carolina, where six U.S. House members are Republicans and one is a Democrat.
Redrawing these voting districts shows that Democrat Plantation slave owners still have their slaves in check and under their control, they’re basically admitting to every other culture that the Black Culture is the only ones they can still fool enough to surrender their freedoms and rights for free Trinkets and garbage little giveaways which basically telling blacks they’re no smarter than they were during the years of slavery, every black should be enraged about the fact they are still being used as Pawns and imbeciles by the Democrats slave trader party, but unfortunately most brainwashed blacks who can’t think for themselves our suckered back in to the lies, just because they’re bribed and programmed to they get something new free from the Democrat corrupted government which is never really free, it’s our tax money of all of us in this country paying for it, but I guess they still haven’t figured that out yet either, this is a slap in the face of blacks , so where’s all the black activists and communist America hating, anti-white racist, and fake entitled fake victim fake slave crying Democrat corrupted demonic voters, and why aren’t they in the streets tearing every Democrat Party communist headquarters down to the ground, this is how demonic the communist Democrat Party is when it comes to using anyone uneducated and Ill informed enough to believe that their freedom is worthless, remember more white people fought and died for black freedoms than blacks themselves, even though they were brought here by their own people, but I guess they forgot that too, or No Doubt the Democratic communist Plantation Party gave them a different woke fake version of History and that they ate it up and believe that too.
Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh HAVE TO GO.
They are NOT REPUBLICAN OR CONSERVATIVE LIKE THEY SAID THEY WERE!!
A race-neutral redistricting would NOT give a minority control of a proportional number of districts. It would give them less. It’s a math issue. Here is an example.
Suppose a state had a redistricting where race somehow got ignored completely (which might be done by computer). Suppose the state had 1 million blacks, 9 million whites, and 10 districts. Would 1 million blacks live in one district, so they get one representative out of 10? Unlikely. It would be more like this: 250,000 in one district, 190,000 in another, and 70,000 in each of the other 8 districts, for a total of 1 million blacks. Each district would have one million voters including both races, but no majority black districts.
the issue is blacks vote almost 100 percent democrat, ergo we should also gerrymander by party
I have always been under the assumption, that for years we voted with no districting! Then it showed what the majority of the populace of that district felt and stood by who was the better candidate for that district! Just because one voting period showed to vote more republican or democrat, doesn’t mean it will always vote that way! Through voting we the people decide who is better at possibly representing us! But at present our government uses race as a deciding factor! Not all in one race agree with one another! Voting should be race or demographic neutral! This is why in the last few years, it has shown that the people wanting to represent us is for agendas only pertaining to pushing unconstitutional agendas! I agree with others that have stated; that these people wanting to represent us, follow our country’s constitution and ideologies! They should know this or learn it, as well as standing behind their oath! We also need to hold the people representing us and others working in other governmental agencies accountable for their actions! If anyone that is working for the government is working for us, they are a paid employee’s of We the People! As of present a lot of the people working for We the People are working for their agendas and not for us!