Both Sides Do It, But the Democrat Party is More Neoliberal

The Supreme Court just acted on voting rights. You’ll never be able to guess what happened, or what the voting configuration was:

In two orders, with all of the conservative Republican-appointed Justices voting in favor and all the liberal Democratic-appointed Justices opposed, the Supreme Court put on hold a lower court order for Texas to redraw congressional and state house district lines to cure voting rights problems. The lower court had found that some of the districts were drawn with a racially discriminatory intent, some were drawn with a racially discriminatory effect, and some were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. Had the lower court order been put into effect, there would have been some new districts (which would have benefitted Democratic and minority voters in Texas) for the 2018 elections. Now, it is unlikely that such a remedy could be in place before 2020, the last elections before the next round of redistricting.

Texas’s request was early—the lower court had not even drawn the district lines yet, and so the Supreme Court’s involvement now is somewhat aggressive (on the other hand, if the 5 Justice majority knew where it was going to go, why prolong the uncertainty?).

What this means is that the 5 conservative Justices, including Justice Kennedy, are sufficiently confident that Texas could win this case (or that the plaintiffs won’t suffer that much harm to have another election under unconstitutional and illegal lines) to grant this stay.

OK, perhaps the Supreme Court justices chosen by Democratic and Republicans might differ on a few things from time to time, but it would be vulgar BLACKMAIL to bring this up during the context of an election.

Seriously, vote suppression is critical to the future of the Republican Party, and the Republicans on the Supreme Court are all-in.