Could this Be the United States Too?

 

“It’s not that Hong Kong doesn’t have any democracy, it doesn’t even have any freedom.”

A Hong Kong businessman who fled to Taiwan as China crushed the former British Colony’s traditional freedoms.

What if states could set their own rules, even avoiding their state constitution, when it comes to redistricting and elector qualifications? Legalized but highly distorting gerrymandering? Wouldn’t it be “wonderful” if right-wing candidates in red states knew that they would never face a Democrat who would have the slightest chance of winning? “State courts have played an influential role in the congressional redistricting battles following the 2020 Census. Judges have reined in Republican gerrymanders in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, for instance, and rejected maps drawn by Democratic-led legislatures in New York and Maryland… [But those checks and balances may be about to die…]

“The Supreme Court on Thursday [6/30] said it will consider what would be a radical change in the way federal elections are conducted, giving state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests even if their actions violated state constitutions and resulted in extreme partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats… The court will look next term at a case from North Carolina [Moore vs Harper], where Republicans want to restore a redistricting map that was drawn by the GOP-led legislature but rejected as a violation of the state constitution by the state’s supreme court.

“The Supreme Court in March let the North Carolina high court ruling stand for the upcoming fall elections. But three of the court’s conservative justices at the time said they were skeptical state courts had a role in refereeing the rules for federal elections, and a fourth said the issue was ripe for consideration.” Washington Post, July 1st. It’s hard to picture a different result. With a 6-3 right-wing majority that, so far, has voted over 74% of the time in favor of clear right-wing positions, the Court has effectively become a highly partisan de facto legislature with no one to overrule or even challenge them. See also my June 26th blog, The Great American Experiment in Democracy Fail, for additional observations.

To understand the magnitude of the partisan shift in the Supreme Court, you can start by looking at a 2015 Supreme Court ruling – a 5-4 ruling where the dissenters (Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito) are today part of a 6-3 right-wing majority cabal. The 2015 case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, generated a majority opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that ruled against Arizona’s Republican-controlled Legislature and upheld a ballot measure approved by the voters that created an independent commission to draw the election districts. Arizona legislators claimed that they had the ultimate power… even over a voter established independent commission.

However, the newer cases are based on the GOP flirtation with the concept that state legislatures can override courts and redistricting commissions, and worse, in support of the efforts to overturn the 2020 and later elections, possibly even negate and replace the electors representing the winning vote in a presidential election. While that notion sounds dramatically autocratic and patently absurd to anyone who believes in democracy, we have a clearly biased partisan Supreme Court actively considering giving state legislatures enough power to constrain and manipulate the voting will of American citizens.

The Court could have let stand their earlier Moore vs Harper North Carolina ruling, but they didn’t. The only reason to rehear the case would be to rule on the merits in support of blanket state legislative power over redistricting. The expected decision could ensure that Republican candidates would have an overwhelming advantage over Democratic opponents. In case you were wondering what Donald Trump was trying to accomplish, what all those rioters were attempting to implement on January 6, 2021, and what those House January 6th Committee hearings are all about, understand that the U.S. Supreme Court just might be opening some back doors to legalize precisely those antidemocratic practices.

States do have a great deal of leeway in setting election rules, but Congress can constitutionally override state procedures when it comes to federal elections. The July 1st Los Angeles Times (David G. Savage writing) sets the background examining Moore vs Harper: “Last year, the North Carolina Legislature drew a new map of congressional districts that is widely expected to elect a Republican in 10 of 14 districts, even if the voters statewide split about evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

“The North Carolina Supreme Court rejected the map as unconstitutional in February. Its justices, a majority of whom were Democrats, said the General Assembly does not have ‘unlimited power to draw electoral maps that keep themselves and our members of Congress in office as long as they want, regardless of the will of the people, by making some votes more powerful than others. ... We hold that our constitution’s Declaration of Rights guarantees the equal power of each person’s voice in our government through voting in elections that matter.’

“It ordered a redrawn map that is expected to give Democratic candidates a good chance of winning six of the 14 seats… In March, the [US] Supreme Court turned down a GOP appeal seeking to block the use of the revised map in this year’s elections because it was too late to make additional changes before this year’s election.

“But [US Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh [a right-wing Trump appointee] said at the time that it was important for the justices to hear arguments on the issue in the fall and decide early next year whether state legislators have the sole authority to set the rules for federal elections in their states.”

If the Court in fact rules in favor of virtually complete state legislative control over redistricting, that would indeed set a precedent in support of a litany of additional right-wing voter suppression in red states. The repeal of individual rights by the Supreme Court is terrifying. But the reversal of Roe vs Wade was just part of a Supreme Court efforts to place right-wing religious zealots, conspiracy theorist and NRA believers above the U.S. Constitution.

I’m Peter Dekom, and democracy is crumbling all around us, but with the Supreme Court’s enhancing and enabling gun ownership against the popular will, the notion of a sporadic and then concentrated civil war looms large… stand back and stand by.