THE SUPREME COURT PLANS TO STEAL 19 HOUSE SEATS FOR THE GOP AND DEMOCRATS SHOULD GET ANGRY NOW

Last week, Politico reported on the possible outcome of a Supreme Court case focused on the only major provision of the Voting Rights Act that hasn't been gutted yet by our Republican Supreme Court:

Ahead of the court’s Oct. 15 rehearing of Louisiana v. Callais — a case that has major implications for the VRA — two voting rights groups are sounding the alarm, warning that eliminating Section 2, a provision that prohibits racial gerrymandering when it dilutes minority voting power, would let Republicans redraw up to 19 House seats to favor the party and crush minority representation in Congress.

That calculation, made in a new report from Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund ... would all but guarantee Republican control of Congress.

The case was heard last year, but a rehearing was scheduled for this year. Oral arguments took place yesterday, and it's now universally acknowledged that the six Republican justices will vote to hand those 19 seats to their party. Here's The New York Times:

The Supreme Court appeared poised on Wednesday to weaken a key provision of a landmark civil rights law by sharply limiting the ability of lawmakers to use race as a factor in drawing voting maps, which could lead to widespread redistricting efforts.

If the justices determine that lawmakers cannot consider race when drawing districts, the consequences for the country’s political balance could be sweeping. The decision could end the practice, endorsed by the court for decades, of crafting congressional districts with the purpose of helping minority voters elect the candidates of their choice.

Black districts tend to be Democratic districts. Republican states would like to eliminate those Democratic districts, and now it's clear that the Supreme Court intends to let them do that.

Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi could have all of their Democratic members ousted.

In Mississippi, more than 36% of the population is Black. Alabama is more than 25% Black. South Carolina is nearly 25% Black.

Louisiana, the state that's suing, also has a substantial Black population. Elie Mystal writes:

The state has six Congressional districts. After the 2020 Census, the state produced a map where five of those districts were majority white. But Louisiana is only 56 percent white, and 31 percent Black. Simple math should tell you that there should be at least two districts in Louisiana that are majority-minority....

Louisiana was sued by the NAACP after the 2020 census, and a court ordered the state to redraw its maps, producing two majority-minority districts.

A group of white plaintiffs in Louisiana then counter-sued the state over its new, less racist maps, arguing (wait for it) that this application of the VRA violated their constitutional rights. The white litigants were arguing that their overrepresentation in Congress is permissible and that attempts to use the VRA to stop them is the real Constitutional violation.

And the Supreme Court intends to give those white litigants what they want.

Can the Supremes be stopped? It seems unlikely, but Democrats and liberal/progressive activists should try.

Even as the Supreme Court has become more and more partisan and more and more corrupt, critics have maintained a certain level of respect for the institution. The Court's intentions are treated as not completely knowable in advance. Its rulings are greeted with, at worst, muttered disgruntlement. We don't get mad, and we certainly don't get mad in advance. It's the Supreme Court! It's sacred!

Screw that. We need to start talking about these highly partisan legislators in robes with the same lack of reverence we show other politicians we don't like. In this case specifically, we should say that we know the fix is in and we know the outcome: A Republican Supreme Court plans to steal 19 House seats for the GOP.

Mainstream Democrats should express outrage about that in advance. The rest of us should march and protest and write letters and make phone calls to the Supreme Court -- hell, if they're going to be legislators pretending to be justices, we should treat them the way we treat legislators.

The Supreme Court's six Republicans aren't Donald Trump -- he shares their radical-right agenda, but unlike Trump, they've tried to get the agenda enacted incrementally and stealthily. Trump loudly proclaims that he's putting his thumb on the scale for the GOP; the Supreme Court's Republicans act on the GOP's behalf (and the plutocracy's behalf) quietly and in a stepwise manner, hoping we potted frogs won't notice as the cooking water gradually comes to a boil.

The Court's Republicans stay under the radar because their work isn't on video and their words rarely become viral soundbites. The decisions they write, including the ones that are most devastating to our democracy, are written in a dense legalese that's about as quotable as an end user license agreement. That's why they're rarely the main characters in our news cycle, even though they've arguably done more damage to America than Trump.

So we should make them the main characters. We should talk about their plan to steal 19 seats for the GOP. We should say this until everyone who pays even a small amount of attention to politics knows about that plan and knows the number 19.

We should do this because the Supreme Court's Republicans are accustomed to flying under the radar. They expect normie Americans not to be paying attention to them. I know that publicity didn't alter the Dobbs decision after it leaked, but if there's a 1% chance that they can be persuaded not to do this, it'll be because we call them on the intended ruling before they can issue it.

Even if this doesn't work, it's good to encourage the public to have a healthy disrespect for the current Supreme Court. They shouldn't be seen as thoughtful mandarins wisely applying arcane knowledge in their quiet chambers. They should be perceived as the grubby political hacks that they are.