Surprise SCOTUS decision springboards Dems’s next voting rights push
“The ruling does not strengthen legal protections for Black voters — it merely preserves the status quo,” CBC chair Steven Horsford said after the ruling was announced.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
In a surprise 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s ruling to strike down an Alabama congressional map because it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against Black voters.
The decision in Allen v. Milligan paves the way for Alabama to add an additional majority-Black district and empower plaintiffs in the over 30 redistricting lawsuits across 10 different states to continue challenging racist maps under Section 2. Once it’s all said and done, these challenges could net Democrats the seats they need to flip the House from the current Republican majority next year.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elana Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — while Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the majority opinion in part.
“The shocking decision is proof of how egregious Alabama’s gerrymandering really was,” Kat Calvin, CEO of Project ID Action Fund and author of the upcoming book, American Identity in Crisis, said to Supercreator after the decision was announced. “Even this [court] couldn’t deny it.”
Congressional Democrats were undoubtedly gratified by the court’s decision. But it’s one of many expected from the justices this month that could adversely impact affirmative action, LGBTQ+ rights, and the future of President Joe Biden’s student debt relief program.
Not to mention, maintaining the status quo is a far cry from reinstating voter protections that have been chipped away in recent years and expanding them for those who have been systematically excluded from the process.
“The ruling does not strengthen legal protections for Black voters — it merely preserves the status quo,” Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said in a statement. “The fact remains that the Supreme Court previously allowed the same map that they just determined unconstitutionally, and systemically diluted Black votes be used in the 2022 election.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries agreed.
“For far too long, people of color have had their voting power diluted because extreme, right-wing lawmakers believe that illegal racial gerrymanders benefit them politically,” he said in a statement. “While today’s decision is a victory, Alabama is not the only state that has engaged in race-based gerrymandering.”
And Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech that while democracy held firm in this case, the struggle for equal representation continues.
“We must fight to make redistricting fairer, much fairer throughout the country. We must do more at the state level,” he said. “And we must do more in Congress to pass legislation that will strengthen the Voting Rights Act and fight back against racial discrimination at the ballot box.”
Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama, who represents the lone majority-minority district in her state, told CNN’s Manu Raju she expects this to change soon.
“Instead of being the lone Democrat in Alabama’s delegation, the ruling really suggests that there may be two of us who will be there next time,” she said. “I think it’s about making sure that minority voters have a voice. Obviously representation matters.”
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama tweeted that she hopes the Supreme Court’s decision will tone down the critiques from Democrats pining to pass ethics reform due to what they describe as a crisis of legitimacy on the court, due in part to recent scandals involving Clarence Thomas.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits any voting law, practice, or map that results in the denial of the right to vote of any citizen on account of race and remains one of the few enforcement tools against anti-voter laws at the state and federal levels.
The Allen v. Milligan decision comes ten years after Chief Justice Roberts was a decisive vote in Shelby County v. Holder a case that suspended Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibited certain jurisdictions from implementing any change affecting voting without receiving preapproval from the US attorney general of the US District Court for DC.
During a 2021 congressional hearing, Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department called the preclearance process the agency’s “single-most powerful and effective tool for protecting the right to vote.”
Clarke added the Justice Department blocked over 3,000 voting changes while the provision was in place, 60 percent of which were found to be intentionally discriminatory. Section 5 was effective because it not only blocked discrimination, it deterred other states from passing anti-voter laws.
But as we saw after the 2020 election, cities and states were able to enact laws in the absence of preclearance that immediately take root without meeting their burden of proof that the new rules weren’t adopted with a discriminatory purpose or wouldn’t worsen the position of minority voters.
These laws cut early voting periods, placed new and unnecessary restrictions to register or vote, eliminated or consolidated polling sites in communities of color, purged eligible voters from the rolls, and imposed limits on advocacy groups that seek to help voters participate in democracy.
In the decade since Shelby, the “department’s ability to protect the right to vote has been eroded as a result,” she said.
As I reported this week, the CBC kicked off a summer of action that will culminate in August during the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was followed by the Selma voting rights movement that helped pass the Voting Rights Act.
Voter education and voter registration, targeted specifically to young voters, men of color, as well as citizens who’ve been previously incarcerated but who are eligible to register to vote, are two of the three strategic pillars the tour will advance.
And on the legislative front, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia are working to reintoduce the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill named after the late civil rights icon that would modernize and revitalize the 1965 law, including by restoring the preclearance formula.
“Congress has broad enforcement powers and must act now to restore the VRA, to prevent us from backsliding into a nation where millions of citizens, particularly citizens of color, find it difficult to register, cast their ballot and elect candidates of choice,” Clarke said during her congressional testimony.
But we’ve been here before.
President Joe Biden invested enormous political capital on this issue during the first 14 months of his administration, including giving a big speech in January 2021 at Atlanta University Center Consortium on the grounds of Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University.
The president said he and Vice President Kamala Harris would continue to fight to pass the John Lewis Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, a comprehensive bill that passed the House last Congress but ran into a Senate filibuster soon after.
“The right to vote and have that vote counted is sacred and fundamental — it is the right from which all of our other rights spring,” Biden said in a statement. “Key to that right is ensuring that voters pick their elected officials — not the other way around. Today’s decision confirms the basic principle that voting practices should not discriminate on account of race, but our work is not done.”
Beyond his statement, it’s unclear how prominently voting rights will feature in Biden’s reelection campaign even if he’s limited in his official capacity to restore old and codify new protections of the franchise.
But it’d be political malpractice for Democrats not to use the decision to renew their calls for voting rights reform, a point not lost on Suzan DelBene, the chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, who’s responsible for leading Democratic incumbents and challengers back to the majority.
“This ruling affirms why the VRA is so critically important and still necessary today,” she said in a statement. “This decision will affect redistricting cases across the country and help deliver a House of Representatives that better reflects the diversity of our nation, ensuring all voices are represented equally.”
For more: “John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh really did just save the Voting Rights Act” by Mark Joseph Stern
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! It’s Friday, June 9, 2023. You’re reading Supercreator Daily, your morning guide to the politicians, power brokers, and policies shaping the American creator experience.
TODAY IN POLITICS
All times Eastern
9:35 a.m. Vice President Harris will depart Washington, DC to Nassau, The Bahamas, where she will arrive at 12:10 p.m.
10 a.m. President Biden will receive his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office. The Senate is in.
11:30 a.m. The president will hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom in the Oval Office. The Senate will vote to confirm Dilawar Syed to be Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration and advance the nomination of Molly Silfen to be a judge on the Court of Federal Claims.
1:30 p.m. Biden and Sunak will hold a joint press conference in the East Room.
2:15 p.m. The vice president will participate in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Philip Davis of The Bahamas.
1:45 p.m. The Senate will vote to confirm the Silfen nomination if it passes the previous procedural vote.
3 p.m. Harris will receive leaders attending the US-Caribbean Leaders Meeting.
4:10 p.m. The vice president will co-host the US-Caribbean Leaders Meeting, alongside Prime Minister Davis.
6:45 p.m. Harris will meet with US Embassy Nassau staff and their families.
7 p.m. The president will host a Pride celebration with Betty Who on the South Lawn.
8:10 p.m. The vice president will depart Nassau to return to DC at 10:30 p.m.
The House is out.
THEY DID THAT
Former President Donald Trump became the first former president to be indicted after a grand jury handed up federal charges of mishandling classified documents and then obstructing the government from reclaiming them. Trump, currently the early frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, is also the first former president to be hit with state charges after he was indicted in New York for allegedly paying hush money to a sex worker. He’s also the first president to be impeached twice.
261,000 people filed unemployment claims last week, the highest level since October 2021 and an indication that the booming labor market may finally be cooling.
The Senate confirmed Dilawar Syed to be the Deputy Administrator of the Small Business Administration making him the highest-ranking Muslim official in the Biden administration. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus applauded the confirmation.
Democratic Reps. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Sylvia Garcia of Texas and Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada introduced a bill that would add extreme heat to FEMA’s list of major disaster-qualifying events so local governments can receive federal assistance. The list currently includes hurricanes, tornados, storms, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruptions, landslides, mudslides, snowstorms, or droughts.
Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon sent a letter to Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra and Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure asking them to protect Medicaid recipients from red tape and confusion during the redetermination process in Republican-led states.
Reps. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Alma Adams of North Carolina — two senior Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee — sent a letter to committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx urging her to schedule a hearing on the rise of child labor violations.
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz gave food pun lovers a treat in this two-minute takedown of the House Republican’s agenda, including two messaging bills to protect gas stoves from a nonexistent ban.
Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike Rounds of South Dakota introduced legislation that would allow the Justice Department to transfer forfeited Russian assets to Ukraine as it defends itself against President Vladimir Putin of Russia’s illegal invasion.
Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey reintroduced legislation that would require the State Department to create a Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Islamophobia. The bill would also establish a comprehensive strategy for establishing US leadership in combatting Islamophobia worldwide.
The Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls re-released an expanded version of a 145-page comprehensive policy framework for how to center Black women at in policymaking to achieve an equitable economy.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California proposed a constitutional amendment to restrict access to guns nationwide. It would raise the minimum purchase age to 21, require universal background checks and a waiting period, and ban assault weapons — and face swift widespread opposition from Republican-led states.
Related: Democratic Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas and Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Republican Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio and Rob Wittman of Virginia, and 36 member signatories sent a letter top Biden administration officials calling for employment protections for military spouses during change of duty station.
President Biden wrote an op-ed on the American economic recovery.
The White House postponed last night’s Pride celebration on the South Lawn until tomorrow due to the smoke in the air from the Canadian wildfires.
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