The United States Supreme Court has released its decision in Louisiana v Callais. To listen to Democrats, including Barack Obama who just argued that a wildly drawn partisan redistricting scheme in Virginia was “fair,” is to hear hysterics lying to whip partisans into a frenzy. A few days after a progressive activist, inflamed by leftwing rhetoric attempted a mass assassination of the President and his cabinet in Washington, perhaps Democrats should rein in their lies.
The Supreme Court said, plainly, that states cannot draw legislative districts based on race. The several states cannot draw districts to be predominantly white to preclude black voters from representation. The several states also cannot draw districts to be predominantly black to preclude white voters from representation. The constitution requires a color-blind society.
Fifty-eight black men and women serve in the United States House of Representatives. A majority of them represent districts where white voters outnumber black voters. The idea that black Americans cannot get elected to Congress without majority-minority districts is, here in the twenty-first century, nonsense. The same racism that led Democrats to believe black Americans need affirmative action to get ahead, led them to believe black Americans need racially discriminatory congressional districts to get elected. The data shows otherwise.
In the Callais case, Louisiana had drawn partisan congressional districts to protect Republicans. A federal judge determined that, in so doing, Louisiana had denied black voters the opportunity for a second majority-minority district. The judge ordered the state to specifically draw a district that would most likely elect a black member of Congress. Louisiana got sued a second time for doing so and another court found Louisiana explicitly drew a district based on race. The Supreme Court agreed and said that was unconstitutional.
Democrats’ reacted as if the Supreme Court just reimposed slavery. For the last several decades, the Supreme Court has demanded states give up racial discriminatory practices like racial preferences in college admissions and hirings. Now, the same line of logic applies to legislative redistricting. Therein lies the problem. A simple review of Republican states show their districts are mostly compact, keeping communities of interest together. Democrat states have gerrymandered with legislative districts meandering across whole states to achieve partisan purposes.
Democrat policies have pushed their residents to move to Republican led states. Those Democrat states are struggling with both a loss of population and their voters living in urban cores. Their legislative lines must be stretched out from the urban cores to prohibit Republicans getting elected. Racially gerrymandered districts in Southern states also must be stretched across states and communities of interest to ensure black politicians get elected. By ending racial gerrymandering, black politicians can still get elected, but in Southern states it will be harder for Democrats to get elected.
All the problems for the Democratic Party right now come down to power. Their states are losing populations, which is why they support illegal immigration. The Constitution requires counting residents, not just citizens, for purposes of congressional apportionment. Congressional apportionment then determines a state’s Electoral College vote. As Democrat states lose their citizens, who can vote, they must rely on illegal aliens who cannot vote, but whose residency can prop up population numbers for congressional apportionment.
Southern states, which have long been required to draw majority-minority districts no longer have to. That will reduce Democrats in the House of Representatives. Combine that with the loss of population in Democrat states and it will reduce, across the nation, both the number of Democrats in Congress and the Electoral College vote of Democrat states. The truth is irrelevant to Democrat hysteria. They see the loss of their power as an existential crisis.
Unfortunately, Democrats have internalized the idea that only they are virtuous and only their use of power is virtuous. Republicans in charge are a threat to democracy, which is why so many on the Left have taken to firing bullets at the right. The Callais decision is common sense and ends racial discrimination. That it hurts Democrats shows how that party has preserved itself through racial politics and how, as times change, that party will be profoundly altered.
