AN AMAZING DECISION FROM THE UNSUPREME COURT

Well, file this under It’s Always Nice When They Live Up To Your Hopes Rather Than Down To Your Expectations:

This morning, the Supreme Court rejected Alabama’s stay request on the court-ordered redrawn congressional maps. This is the first sign that it will not be compliant with the Alabama Legislature’s refusal to obey the Court’s June ruling knocking down its maps.

There were no public dissents, nor any additional explanation beyond the one-sentence stay denial.

The (also) unexpected June ruling by a 5-4 majority with Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the liberals ordered Alabama to redraw its maps with an additional Black majority district (or “something quite close to it,” Roberts wrote).

Instead, the Alabama legislators declared they would not “damage” the narrow Republican House majority, pointing to Louisiana and Texas as being next after them to be ordered to do this, which would mean “Republicans will never be a majority in the House again.” They proceeded to produce a map with only one Black majority district and defiantly submitted it to a panel of federal judges. The appeals court refused that map too, asserting that it was “troubled” by the “extraordinary circumstance” of the legislators totally disregarding the court’s instruction.

So Alabama officials turned to the stay request. They rested their ask on eyebrow-raising rationale, including that the court would have had to start the entire Voting Rights Act assessment and evidentiary hearing from the beginning because the legislature produced a new (noncompliant) map. The officials also wrote that they simply disagreed with the lower court’s ruling so there.

The judge’s panel responded: “We consumed more than 200 pages trying to consider every argument the Secretary made about the 2023 Plan, and the Secretary has not pointed us to a single specific error or omission. If it were enough for a stay applicant merely to assert a ‘fundamental disagreement’ with an injunction, stay motions would be routinely (perhaps invariably) granted. That is not the rule.”

The officials then elevated the stay request to the Supreme Court, where Justice Clarence Thomas set a response deadline early last week.

The comfort Alabama officials displayed in ignoring both the Supreme Court and the federal panel reveals both how accustomed to winning right-wing litigants have become under the 6-3 supermajority, and how confident they are that they can flip a member of the narrow majority.

The Alabama officials reportedly think the June decision was mostly constrained to the legitimacy of the lower court’s stay order — despite Roberts’ extensive writing on the merits — and believe Kavanaugh is open to changing his mind, according to the Alabama Political Recorder.

Their belief is due to Kavanaugh’s throwaway statement in his opinion that the court’s decision outlawing affirmative action might affect this decision regarding the Voting Rights Act and make the VRA unconstitutional.

At least on this procedural step, the Court declined to accede to the Alabama politicians’ demands.

The appeals court ordered a Special Master to draw proposed districts in response to the refusal by the legislature. The Special Master has submitted three potential maps, all of which create a second district that is “competitive” for a black candidate.

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