26-10-2022, 09:12 AM
Belén Fernández
Contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
Published On 22 Oct 2022
22 Oct 2022
In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has dutifully laboured to erode the protections guaranteed under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a civil rights era milestone that aimed to safeguard minority voters from racial discrimination. Now, six decades after the law’s passage, the country’s highest judicial body will decide whether to drop some of the few pretences to justice and equality in US electoral democracy that remain.
Keep in mind that this is the same conservative-majority court that recently brought us the evisceration of Roe v Wade and other assorted sociopathic rulings, such as the one enshrining the constitutional right to carry a gun outside the home. That, by the way, was just a month after the Uvalde elementary school mass killing of 19 children and two adults.
One of the high-profile cases that the Supreme Court is currently hearing deals with Alabama’s congressional redistricting map, which was implemented by that state’s Republican legislature following the census in 2020. The redistricting scheme is a rather transparent violation of the Voting Rights Act. While more than 27 percent of Alabama’s voting-age population is Black, deft cartographic manoeuvres have produced an arrangement in which African American voters have a realistic chance of electing a candidate they like in only one of the state’s seven congressional districts.
In January 2022, a lower federal court ordered that Alabama revamp its discriminatory map in time for the midterm elections in November. The state appealed to the Supreme Court, which blocked the lower court’s ruling and agreed to an expedited hearing of the case.
......
Meanwhile, another current Supreme Court case with potentially significant implications for the 2024 presidential election also has to do with the issue of gerrymandering, this time in North Carolina. Earlier this year, the state’s Supreme Court struck down a new congressional map – birthed by its Republican-dominated legislature – for violating the state constitution via egregious partisan districting.
The court imposed an alternate map, the legislature claimed the court’s move was illegal, and – presto – the US federal Supreme Court is now deciding whether to sign off on the so-called “independent state legislature theory”.
......
Over the past decade and a half, the court has worked to systematically disenfranchise minority voters while also reversing campaign finance restrictions to allow Big Money an even more outsized role in the US government. The Voting Rights Act itself underwent extensive assault by the court in high-profile cases in 2013 and 2021, which ruled in favour of discriminatory voting practices.
......
beloved “democracy” has never been about “one person, one vote”. Take, for example, the Electoral College – that obscure, bizarre instrument of structural racism that continues to determine the leader of the free world every four years, US popular vote be damned.
Nor, obviously, does US corporate plutocracy qualify as “rule by the people” – who instead get to contend with mass socioeconomic strife, inequality, and a dearth of healthcare and basic rights while their government goes about dropping bipartisan bombs to “democratise” other people elsewhere. The gargantuan funding that flows into US political campaigns and advertising only enhance the whole electoral farce.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/...-democracy
Contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
Published On 22 Oct 2022
22 Oct 2022
In recent years, the United States Supreme Court has dutifully laboured to erode the protections guaranteed under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a civil rights era milestone that aimed to safeguard minority voters from racial discrimination. Now, six decades after the law’s passage, the country’s highest judicial body will decide whether to drop some of the few pretences to justice and equality in US electoral democracy that remain.
Keep in mind that this is the same conservative-majority court that recently brought us the evisceration of Roe v Wade and other assorted sociopathic rulings, such as the one enshrining the constitutional right to carry a gun outside the home. That, by the way, was just a month after the Uvalde elementary school mass killing of 19 children and two adults.
One of the high-profile cases that the Supreme Court is currently hearing deals with Alabama’s congressional redistricting map, which was implemented by that state’s Republican legislature following the census in 2020. The redistricting scheme is a rather transparent violation of the Voting Rights Act. While more than 27 percent of Alabama’s voting-age population is Black, deft cartographic manoeuvres have produced an arrangement in which African American voters have a realistic chance of electing a candidate they like in only one of the state’s seven congressional districts.
In January 2022, a lower federal court ordered that Alabama revamp its discriminatory map in time for the midterm elections in November. The state appealed to the Supreme Court, which blocked the lower court’s ruling and agreed to an expedited hearing of the case.
......
Meanwhile, another current Supreme Court case with potentially significant implications for the 2024 presidential election also has to do with the issue of gerrymandering, this time in North Carolina. Earlier this year, the state’s Supreme Court struck down a new congressional map – birthed by its Republican-dominated legislature – for violating the state constitution via egregious partisan districting.
The court imposed an alternate map, the legislature claimed the court’s move was illegal, and – presto – the US federal Supreme Court is now deciding whether to sign off on the so-called “independent state legislature theory”.
......
Over the past decade and a half, the court has worked to systematically disenfranchise minority voters while also reversing campaign finance restrictions to allow Big Money an even more outsized role in the US government. The Voting Rights Act itself underwent extensive assault by the court in high-profile cases in 2013 and 2021, which ruled in favour of discriminatory voting practices.
......
beloved “democracy” has never been about “one person, one vote”. Take, for example, the Electoral College – that obscure, bizarre instrument of structural racism that continues to determine the leader of the free world every four years, US popular vote be damned.
Nor, obviously, does US corporate plutocracy qualify as “rule by the people” – who instead get to contend with mass socioeconomic strife, inequality, and a dearth of healthcare and basic rights while their government goes about dropping bipartisan bombs to “democratise” other people elsewhere. The gargantuan funding that flows into US political campaigns and advertising only enhance the whole electoral farce.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/...-democracy