The US Supreme Court surprisingly canceled Alabama’s election card this Thursday on the grounds that it discriminates against the black vote. In a state with a 27% African-American population, the Republican-dominated state legislature has selected districts for the House of Representatives elections in which black voters have a majority in only one of the seven constituencies. A divided court upholds the judgment of a lower court that voided this card.
The Allen vs. Milligan case has been closely watched for its potential to undermine the historic Voting Rights Act, and campaigners feared an uncomfortable ruling, but the conservative majority on the Supreme Court unexpectedly broke when deciding the case. Two of his judges sided with the three progressive judges in the decision with a score of 5:4. The verdict is almost entirely signed by the President of the Court, John Roberts. His opinion was joined by the conservative Brett Kavanaugh and the progressives Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The other four Conservative judges have spoken out against it and expressed dissenting opinions.
In the United States, the census is reviewed every 10 years and states have the power to designate electoral districts based on population. They do this in a way that benefits their party (a common practice known as “gerrymandering”). As the Alabama state legislature presented its aggressive map, activists led by Evan Milligan, director of the Alabama Forward organization, filed an appeal.
Recalling the long and “disgusting” history of discrimination in that state, the district court ordered that the redesign should include a second-majority Black majority district to avoid discrimination and to recognize that the population was sufficiently grouped to do so to allow. Alabama appealed through its Secretary of State, Wes Allen.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits electoral discrimination based on race, but Alabama reversed the argument, claiming that its voting card was demonstrably not racially motivated and that constituting a black-majority second voting district would violate the very right to vote against that enshrined in the 14th amendment equality as this would mean that race would have to be taken into account.
The Supreme Court rejects this thesis: “The court refuses to revise its case law consistent with Alabama’s ‘racial neutrality benchmark’ theory,” it proclaims, later stating that “under the court’s precedent, no district is equally open , when minority voters are confronted – as opposed to “their majority counterparts – a block vote along racial lines that arises in the context of significant racial discrimination within the state, whereby the vote of a minority does not match the vote of a non-minority voter”.
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Roberts is careful to note that this does not change the case law of the Court, that it is a case in point and that one should not draw the wrong conclusions: “The Court’s Opinion does not undermine or ignore the concern that Section 2 [de la ley del Derecho al Voto] can unacceptably reinforce race in the distribution of political power within states. Instead, the court merely finds that a faithful application of precedent and a fair reading of the case file do not substantiate these concerns in this case.
Section 2 prohibits voting practices that “result in the denial or limitation of the right of a citizen of the United States to vote on the basis of race.” There is a violation “when the circumstances as a whole show” that members of a minority “have fewer opportunities than other voters to participate in the political process and to elect the representatives of their choice”.
individual votes
The other four conservative judges have opposed the majority decision and published dissenting opinions. Judge Clarence Thomas, an African American, said in the ruling that the decision “obliges Alabama to intentionally redefine its constituencies to allow black voters to control a number of seats roughly proportional to the state’s black population.” Section 2 does not require such a thing, and if it did, the Constitution would not permit it.
The Supreme Court in July refused a precautionary stay of the new draw and the now invalidated districts were used in the November 8 general election. Republicans won six of Alabama’s seven seats, losing only the black-majority seat.
Welcoming the ruling, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement, “Today’s decision rejects efforts to further erode the fundamental protections of the right to vote and upholds the principle that in the United States all eligible voters must be able to do so.” exercise constitutional suffrage without discrimination on the basis of race. The Joe Biden administration sided with the voting rights activists in the process.
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