Not even the Roberts Court is willing to brook open defiance to its rulings.
Few things are more difficult than getting the Roberts Court to side against the Republican Party in a voting-rights case, but the state of Alabama has managed to do so twice in one year.
Two years ago, Alabama sought to diminish the voting power of its Black population by creating only one majority-Black congressional district, despite the fact that the state’s Black population—more than a quarter of its overall population—would sustain two. The Voting Rights Act contains a requirement that under certain conditions, states must draw majority-minority districts, a provision meant to counteract the long history of American legislators racially gerrymandering districts to diminish the influence of nonwhite voters.
In June, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling that required the state to redraw its maps to include a second majority-Black district or something “close to it.” Alabama officials, who feared that a second such district would add a second Democrat to Alabama’s congressional delegation, decided to defy a direct order from the Supreme Court and instead drew a second district without a Black majority. In effect, they were telling the justices, There must be some mistake. Don’t you know who I am?
Yesterday morning, the Court rejected Alabama’s appeal. The original ruling had been 5–4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh siding with the three Democratic appointees, but the new order noted no dissents, Follow Google News
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