Voting Rights

In one of my earlier posts, I told you all about Moore v. Harper coming up on the SCOTUS docket, and earlier I learned of another case to watch, which is Merrill v. Milligan.

This post will outline the cases and tell who granted stays and who dissented on both cases. One attacks our ability to fight in disputes over federal elections and state redistricting (Moore), and the other attacks the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Merrill).

I want to make a very important note on case law. It is about the cases and the final rulings that you are supposed to be weary of, but it is also about which amendments to the Constitution that rest within the language of the decisions and opinions of the court.

In the Moore v. Harper case, they submitted their writ of certiorari in March. The topics that are being argued in this case are partisan gerrymandering, congressional redistricting, and the Elections Clause. There is also language of the Equal Protection Clause, Freedom of Speech, and Assembly Clauses coming in this case from the North Carolina Supreme Court case in which the petitioner appealed. (Remember above that I said it’s important to look at the Amendments encompassed inside of these documents.)

Certiorari from SCOTUS was granted in this case on June 30, 2022 with Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito. This will be a scary case of voter subversion through state gerrymandering, so it is important that we watch this case closely and watch the wording that comes through on opinions of the justices.

All of the documents relating to this case can be found here: Moore v. Harper – The American Redistricting Project(opens in a new tab)

Now, onto Merrill v. Milligan, we see another case that has many precursors of suppression of liberty. John Merrill is the Secretary of State in Alabama, and there are actually two other parties, Evan Milligan and Marcus Caster. This case is coming from a district court in Alabama, which I found odd. It seems this case has bumped up the ladder rather quickly, and it is taking hits at Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the opinion of the lower court dilutes the black vote on a 1994 verbiage from Justice Thomas that redistricting, which he argued “…that interpreting the law to require some level of racial discrimination in how congressional lines are drawn did not comport with the statute and subverted the principle of a color-blind Constitution” (Alabama Center for Law & Liberty, 2022).

Thomas is no stranger to going after this section of the legislation, and this is why I say this branch of government has way too much power. The legislative branch was designed by the Framers to be the strongest, but this Supreme Court is pretty damn powerful.

The Justices supporting the stay and granting certiorari are Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett. Justices Roberts, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer dissented with Roberts and Breyer filing the dissents.

So, this was just a quick look at the cases coming up that have been put on the SCOTUS docket. These 5-4 decisions are going to be coming more and more. I am going to be curious to see how Justice Jackson will begin voting, which I assume it will be better than Breyer’s voting. There are many cases entwined in these two cases too. All of them about voting rights and gerrymandering. Stay tuned…

References:

Alabama Center for Law & Liberty, (2022). “Merrill v. Milligan”. Retrieved from http://alabamalawandliberty.org/merrill-v-milligan/.