Redistricting ruling roils Supreme Court with corruption, bias claims |
Redistricting ruling roils Supreme Court with corruption, bias claims
Here’s the biggest mystery in Washington: Was it a six-sided conspiracy? Or are there only one or two Supreme Court justices behind the chaos caused by the recent ruling allowing new congressional districts to be drawn even after midterm primary voting has started?
Among Democrats, there is no mystery. There is talk of outright corruption. The only question is the extent of the corruption among Supreme Court justices. How many have abandoned judicial impartiality to help President Trump hold his Republican majority in the House?
Last week, the charges of cronyism at the high court pushed beyond whispers with the full-throated charge being made publicly in the credible voice of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The Supreme Court has to be seen “as neutral, nonpartisan,” to maintain “public confidence,” she told a meeting of the American Law Institute last week.
That followed more pointed criticism. Today’s conservative majority “dives into the [political] fray,” she wrote after the right-wing majority on the court issued an emergency ruling to allow Louisiana’s Republican governor to suspend primary voting after more than 100,000 people had already voted.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. responded to Justice Brown Jackson in strong terms. He dismissed her complaints as “groundless and utterly irresponsible” charges.
The spat among the justices can be ignored as a fuss based on predictable complaints from the losing side. But it is hard to ignore the political fact that Republicans in Louisiana as well as Alabama halted primary elections to draw new maps that are more favorable to Republican congressional candidates.
In Tennessee, the congressional map is similarly being redrawn before........