Ron DeSantis, elite vote suppressor

Elite Republicans loves them some Ron DeSantis because he’s the very embodiment of the party of Shelby County:

In Congress, Lawson was a low-key member known for delivering federal money for things like new storm shelters to help his northern Florida communities. He was easily re-elected to the House in 2018 and 2020. But when he ran for re-election in 2022, he lost to a white Republican by nearly 20 points.

Lawson’s loss was nearly entirely attributable to Governor Ron DeSantis. The governor went out of his way to redraw the boundaries of Lawson’s district to ensure that a Republican could win it. It was a brazen scheme to weaken the political power of Black voters and a striking example of how DeSantis has waged one of the most aggressive – and successful – efforts to curtail voting rights in Florida.

In addition to reducing Black representation in Congress, the governor has tightened election rules, created a first-of-its-kind state agency, funded by more than $1m to prosecute election fraud and gutted one of the biggest expansions of modern-era voting rights.

“Governor DeSantis has really targeted Black folks in his efforts to strip, restrict and suppress our vote in the state of Florida. That has been his number one mission,” said Jasmine Burney-Clark, the founder of Equal Ground, a nonprofit that works to register voters.

When John Roberts excreted Rucho v. Common Cause, one of the worst decisions in the ignominious history of the Supreme Court of the United States, he specifically and arbitrarily excluded racial gerrymanders from the newly exhumed “political questions” doctrine (brought to you, appropriately enough, by the author of Dred Scott.) Needless to say, when he says racial gerrymanders are unconstitutional, he doesn’t mean ones where racual minorities get less power!