In an unsigned opinion released on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Wisconsin’s new legislative maps, saying that the state Supreme Court had violated the Constitution in selecting a map for the state Assembly that would increase the number of Black-majority districts in the Milwaukee area from six to seven.
The response from legal analysts was one of disgust and incredulity. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern dubbed the ruling “absolutely shocking,” while UC Irvine professor Rick Hasen called it “bizarre on many levels.” Without full briefing or oral argument—the hallmark of the so-called “shadow docket”—the court’s far-right supermajority is using this emergency order, says Hasen, to “chip away at the Voting Rights Act without acknowledging that it is killing off the last major protection for minority voters from discriminatory districting plans.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined in dissent by Justice Elena Kagan, said the majority’s decision was “unprecedented” and picked apart the many flaws in its reasoning. But unmentioned by Sotomayor was the majority’s monumental hypocrisy in intervening so belatedly in this case. Six weeks ago, the Supreme Court blocked a lower federal court ruling ordering Alabama to redraw its congressional map in order to create a second Black congressional district, as mandated by the VRA. Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained in a concurring opinion that the lower court’s order had come too close to the election for the state to revise its existing map, which had only a single district with a Black majority.
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Now it’s late March, yet the Supreme Court nevertheless sees fit to send Wisconsin back to the drawing board. There’s simply no reason for the differing outcomes: The original lower court ruling in Alabama came down four months before the state’s primary, while the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision was issued just five months ahead of the primary there.
Well, no reason but one: Both Supreme Court decisions undermine the cause of Black representation and in so doing benefit the GOP. The fact that they’re completely at odds with one another is just further proof that the Supreme Court is dominated not merely by conservative ideologues but Republicans in robes.
