Jurisprudence
May 19, 20264:49 PM
The warning is coming from inside the building.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Shawn Thew/Pool/Getty Images.
In more fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision last month to essentially kill the Voting Rights Act, the court issued two orders on Monday that follow a disturbing new trend. With no explanation, the court threw out two lower-court opinions from Mississippi and North Dakota, respectively, where voters had brought claims of illegal racial discrimination in map drawing. In the courts below, both states pushed an outrageous theory that private voters can never bring gerrymandering cases in federal court. In the unexplained orders, the Supreme Court sent the cases back to the lower courts to reconsider in light of the high court’s Callais ruling. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, explaining that the states’ fringe theory that private citizens cannot bring VRA cases goes against SCOTUS precedent. But the court’s silence on this issue, along with the past opinions of some conservative justices, makes these seemingly procedural orders take on an ominous hue that foreshadows the next fight for voting rights in a post-Callais America.
