“Probable jurisdiction is noted.” With those four words on a Monday morning order list, the U.S. Supreme Court indicated that it will accept written briefing and hear oral argument in a racial gerrymandering case out of South Carolina.
Remember, a state is prohibited from using race as the predominant factor in drawing new districts unless it has a compelling reason to do so. If the map drawers use race without any compelling reason, then the districts are racially gerrymandered, a claim rooted in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It’s unclear what intentions lie behind the justices’ decision to take up a relatively straightforward racial gerrymandering case.
Also this week, two Arizona election deniers returned to court for their final hail mary attempts to change 2022 election results. More than six months after Election Day, Republicans Kari Lake and Abe Hamadeh are still contesting their losses in their 2022 races for Arizona governor and attorney general, respectively.
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U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Racial Gerrymandering Case |
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will review a racial gerrymandering case out of South Carolina. The Court will accept written briefing and hear oral argument in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP, a lawsuit arguing that South Carolina’s congressional map drawn with 2020 census data is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that intentionally discriminates against Black voters.
In January, a federal three-judge panel struck down the current configuration of the state’s 1st Congressional District, which is currently represented by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), finding that it violated the 14th Amendment. Republican legislators appealed the panel’s January decision to the Supreme Court and asked it to reverse the decision.
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Since the plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the South Carolina congressional map under the 14th and 15th Amendments, federal law requires a three-judge panel to hear the claims instead of a single district court judge. Any decision from a three-judge panel is then directly appealable to the Supreme Court, which must accept the appeal and rule on the merits of the case.
However, the Supreme Court could have summarily decided the case without going through the briefing and oral argument process. Previously, the Supreme Court has ruled that “a State may not use race as the predominant factor in drawing district lines unless it has a compelling reason.” Will the Supreme Court’s conservative majority adhere to this prior precedent and bolster its “race-blind” rhetoric that it applies to other cases? Or, do the justices have something else in store for us?
Get the full case background here. |
After Six Months, Kari Lake’s Election Contest Nears an End |
This week, failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was back in court in Arizona. Six months after the 2022 midterms, she is still contesting her loss to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D). -
Remember, a two-day trial took place in December 2022 where Lake’s attorney called forward a cast of characters to testify. After the trial, the court found “nothing to substantiate Plaintiff’s claim of intentional misconduct as to either claim.”
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The contest was rejected again on appeal before the appellate court. And when Lake and company then appealed to the state’s highest court, the Arizona Supreme Court dismissed six out of seven of Lake's claims, but sent one claim regarding signature matching back to the trial court for further review.
On Monday evening, the trial court announced that it would hear that one remaining claim. At trial, Lake must prove that Maricopa County — the state’s largest county and home to Phoenix — did not properly match the signatures on mail-in ballots and that this alleged error caused her to lose the election. As a reminder, Lake lost to Hobbs by over 17,000 votes. Find our coverage of the trial here.
In other Arizona election denier news, a court heard oral argument this week on whether to hold a new trial in Abe Hamadeh's (R) lawsuit contesting his loss in the 2022 Arizona attorney general race. Like Lake’s lawsuit, Hamadeh's election contest was rejected at the conclusion of his first trial in December 2022. The judge is expected to rule soon on whether a new trial will be held.
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Ohio Sued Over August Election for Anti-Democratic Amendment |
Last week, Ohio Republicans rammed through a resolution to make it harder for voters to amend the state constitution, despite broad opposition. If approved by voters, the proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution would increase the threshold to pass constitutional amendments from 50% to 60% of the vote. Ohio Republicans intend to place their anti-democratic proposal before voters during a special election on Aug. 8, 2023.
Here’s the catch: The Ohio GOP’s own omnibus voter suppression law enacted in January specifically banned August elections for most purposes. Ironically, the Legislature did so at the request of Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) who stated that “August special elections generate chronically low turnout because voters aren’t expecting an election to occur. This is bad news for the civic health of our state.”
Now, LaRose is being sued for that very reason. “The General Assembly’s attempt to put the Amendment before the people in a low-turnout August special election is unlawful,” a complaint filed in the Ohio Supreme Court last Friday reads.
The new lawsuit noted that the Legislature would have needed to enact a statute specifically authorizing the Aug. 8 election for the purpose of submitting the resolution to Ohio voters, but it failed to do so. Ohio law prescribes an “unambiguous schedule” for elections and does not permit “statewide August elections for any purpose,” the complaint emphasizes.
Meanwhile, yesterday, a state panel set the language for the amendment to go before voters in August. The official ballot name is State Issue 1.
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The Latest Victim of ERIC Panic: Virginia |
Over the last few months, we’ve covered the surge of Republican-controlled states withdrawing from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit organization that allows states to share information to help maintain accurate voter rolls. “A baseless attack on voting or elections gains a foothold in right-wing circles and soon the entire GOP is forced to embrace it,” Marc Elias wrote in March, describing the phenomenon as a “run on democracy.”
The latest casualty of this GOP mass panic is Virginia, which withdrew from ERIC last Thursday. ERIC was founded in 2012 as an opt-in coalition of seven red and blue states; Virginia was one of the original states that created the organization, led by then-Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
Since the beginning of 2023, Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio and West Virginia all announced their exits from ERIC. (Louisiana left in January 2022.) The basis for the withdrawals vary, but they all rely on a combination of right-wing election conspiracies, vague concerns about privacy, dislike of the required outreach to eligible but unregistered voters, the presence of a “hyper-partisan” non-voting board member and assertions that ERIC does not do enough to identify voter fraud.
This week, the Oklahoma Legislature sent a bill to Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) that would make it significantly harder for Oklahoma to join ERIC in the future. Additionally, an Arizona bill is close to passing out of the Legislature that would bar the Grand Canyon State from joining and after some setbacks, a Texas bill to remove the state from the agreement moves forward.
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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court considered in conference whether to take up a challenge to Mississippi's felony disenfranchisement law. In 1890, Mississippi added a provision to its state constitution stripping the right to vote for people convicted of certain felonies, a move with the express purpose of disenfranchising Black men. The 5th Circuit upheld the provision last August.
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This week, a Mississippi judge dismissed a state-level lawsuit challenging House Bill 1020, a recently enacted law that targets Jackson’s majority-Black population. The pro-democracy groups have appealed that decision. However, portions of the law remain temporarily blocked pending a hearing in a separate federal lawsuit.
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In a surprise failure for Republicans, the Missouri Legislature adjourned last Friday without approving a resolution that would have made it harder for voters to amend the state constitution. The Missouri House passed the resolution, but it failed to clear the Senate before the session ended.
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U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) and local officials in Tarrant County, Texas sent a letter asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate voter intimidation and harassment in the Fort Worth-area county. Last month, Democracy Docket contributor Jessica Pishko warned that Tarrant County’s new “election task force” is not only unnecessary, but also designed to suppress the votes of the county’s growing nonwhite population.
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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard a challenge to an Arizona voter suppression law that requires recorders to cancel voter registrations, purge the permanent mail-in voting list and more. The district court blocked some provisions of the law, finding that they likely violate the National Voter Registration Act and the U.S. Constitution.
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ANALYSIS: From School Boards to City Councils, Local Redistricting Matters |
By Caroline Sullivan, Democracy Docket staff writer. Read more ➡️ |
We’re listening to the Five Four Pod’s interview with law professor Steve Vladeck about his new book on the U.S. Supreme Court’s shadow docket, “a catchy name for a catch-all tool that fields emergency requests to the Court.”
Any Succession fans out there? We’re reading about how the uncomfortably eerie Election Night debacle might play out in the courts in real life.
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A new episode of Defending Democracy drops every Friday at 6 a.m. EDT. In today’s new episode, Marc sat down with former U.S. Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) to discuss the congressman’s journey to representing a diverse district in the House, the future of federal voting rights legislation, the need to update New York’s antiquated voting laws and what we can expect from him next. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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