From Vox, “On Monday night, the Supreme Court handed down a deeply alarming decision that suggests that the Court’s Republican majority is about to cut away one of the few parts of the Voting Rights Act that it hasn’t already gutted or killed. The immediate impact of the Court’s 5-4 decision in Merrill v. Milligan is that Alabama’s new congressional maps, a three-judge panel that includes two Trump appointees determined to be an illegal racial gerrymander, will take effect in the 2022 election. Under those maps, only one of the state’s seven districts — or 14 percent of the US House seats — has a real shot of electing a Black lawmaker. African Americans make up about 27 percent of the state’s population. … The bottom line is that Merrill — even in its temporary form — is a disaster for voting rights. It suggests that the Court is going to escalate its assault on the Voting Rights Act — and on voting rights more broadly. And it suggests that even exceedingly weak legal arguments offered by red states have a very good shot of prevailing in this Supreme Court [emphasis added].”
I don’t know where to begin with this topic (again) besides, I told you so — elections have consequences, f***tards. And RBG said it perfectly in her Shelby v. Holder descent, “Volumes of evidence supported Congress’ determination that the prospect of retrogression was real. Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Of course, this was in reaction to SCOTUS eliminating the state preclearance requirements in the Voting Rights Act. The majority basically said states no longer need prior approval from the DOJ before enacting changes to voting rights procedures that discriminate against minorities because the problem had been fixed. In short, the conservative justices no longer saw discrimination in elections, which is why RBG provided the quoted analogy in her opinion. Preclearance was working! Congratulations! So, SCOTUS decided to scrap it because it was outdated (and working). That was the first — widely predicted — assault on voting rights for everyone.
Fast forward to today, and a more conservative SCOTUS is about to eliminate the rest of the Voting Rights Act. Do not be fooled by those justices who claim this recent decision does not address the merits of the case. They said the same thing about the anti-abortion law in Texas. Even though abortions are a protected right across the land, SCOTUS has allowed the law to stand while throwing it back to lower courts for further consideration. Thus, “The justices also left S.B. 8 in place while the case continues in the lower courts, even though it conflicts with current Supreme Court precedent establishing a constitutional right to an abortion up until the point at which the fetus can survive outside the womb.” Do you see a pattern here? SCOTUS has been clearly signaling their ultimate intentions by refusing injunctions whereby intervention should typically allow the status quo to remain or a lower court decision to take effect in particular to protect individuals’ rights. Injunctive relief is supposed to be the “first, do no harm” of jurisprudence. Instead, we now have a SCOTUS that defers to eliminating or restricting peoples’ rights first and then revisits the central legal issue later — at some point, maybe — when they get around to it.
As I have been screaming for well over a year now at the f***tards of America, elections have consequences. Fear not, though! SCOTUS is about to make sure elections no longer matter as they start restricting Americans’ right to vote just at the moment when conservatives can preserve their political power and the Court can safely impose their conservative values and will over America for the next 20 to 30 years. I blame dumbass Democrats because they never made judges an election issue priority. Oh, well. It’s too late, morons. The damage is done and will continue. Democrats will never learn. I guess they can go back to important issues like “Defund the Police,” which will further drive more voters to the RepubliKKKlan Party. Kill me now! I give up! Welcome to stupid America!